Compensatory Plasticity in the Deaf Brain: Effects on Perception of Music

When one sense is unavailable, sensory responsibilities shift and processing of the remaining modalities becomes enhanced to compensate for missing information. This shift, referred to as compensatory plasticity, results in a unique sensory experience for individuals who are deaf, including the manner in which music is perceived. This paper evaluates the neural, behavioural and cognitive evidence for compensatory plasticity following auditory deprivation and considers how this manifests in a unique experience of music that emphasizes visual and vibrotactile modalities.

Compensatory Plasticity in the Deaf Brain: Effects on Perception of Music

When one sense is unavailable, sensory responsibilities shift and processing of the remaining modalities becomes enhanced to compensate for missing information. This shift, referred to as compensatory plasticity, results in a unique sensory experience for individuals who are deaf, including the manner in which music is perceived. This paper evaluates the neural, behavioural and cognitive evidence for compensatory plasticity following auditory deprivation and considers how this manifests in a unique experience of music that emphasizes visual and vibrotactile modalities.

Cross-modal motion aftereffects transfer between vision and touch in early deaf adults

Previous research on early deafness has primarily focused on the behavioral and neural changes in the intact visual and tactile modalities. However, how early deafness changes the interplay of these two modalities is not well understood. In the current study, we investigated the effect of auditory deprivation on visuo-tactile interaction by measuring the cross-modal motion aftereffect. Consistent with previous findings, motion aftereffect transferred between vision and touch in a bidirectional manner in hearing participants. However, for deaf participants, the cross-modal transfer occurred only in the tactile-to-visual direction but not in the visual-to-tactile direction. This unidirectional cross-modal motion aftereffect found in the deaf participants could not be explained by unisensory motion aftereffect or discrimination threshold. The results suggest a reduced visual influence on tactile motion perception in early deaf individuals.

The Effect of Long-Term Unilateral Deafness on Auditory Performance

Background and Objectives We investigated whether there are differences in auditory performance between the healthy ears of subjects with unilateral deafness (UD) and the control ears of subjects with normal hearing (NH) in both ears.Subjects and Method Sixteen subjects with acquired UD and 16 subjects with NH thresholds for both ears were enrolled. We compared the auditory performance of UD group and control group with NH in both ears.Results We found no meaningful differences in the three measures of psychoacoustic performance between the total healthy ears of subjects with UD and the ears of the control group. However, in the subgroup comparison, the left ears of subjects with right UD showed significantly poorer spectral-ripple discrimination (SRD) than the right ears of the subjects with left UD (<i>p</i>=0.006) and the ears of control subjects with NH (<i>p</i>=0.004).Conclusion Our findings indicate that after unilateral auditory deprivation, auditory processing is differentially affected by the side involved. In the subjects with acquired UD, the longterm hearing deprivation on the right side induced the down-regulation of central auditory process for SRD, but hearing deprivation on the left side did not affect SRD.

Factors affecting outcome of cochlear implant: an observational study

<p><strong>Background: </strong>Aim and objectives of the study was to evaluate various factors affecting outcome in cochlear implant surgery.<strong></strong></p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A hospital based retrospective observational study in which 51 patients who underwent cochlear implant surgery from July 2017 to January 2019 were evaluated at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Memorial Hospital, Byculla, Mumbai using 3 parameters i.e. Revised CAP score (CAP), meaningful auditory integration scale (MAIS), speech intelligibility rating (SIR) at various intervals postoperatively and outcome was evaluated.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>It was found that the postoperative mean scores in all age groups were comparable but not significant at 3, 6 and 9 months interval while the difference was statistically significant at 12 and 24 months interval post implantation with less than 2 years age group performing better than other age groups patients with less than 2 years duration of auditory deprivation, the mean scores were found to be statistically significant at 12 and 24 months implantation Relationship to common causes such as prenatal infections, low birth weight, prolonged labour, hyperbilirubinemia, meningitis and consanguineous marriage were considered but not significant. No significant difference was observed in parent’s education level, urban-rural population to the outcome of cochlear implantation.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Two most important factors that affect the outcome cochlear implantation are the age at implantation and the duration of auditory deprivation. Other factors are important but not significant and do not affect the outcome significantly.</p>

Technology Makes Things Possible

Assistive technology may compensate for, or improve, deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children’s ability to cope with auditory deprivation, language difficulties, and other challenges that could impair their ability to acquire skills during their school years. Technology is a catalyst for learning and training processes, capable of empowering DHH children to realize their linguistic, communicative, and cognitive potential. The rapid progress of technology has had an impact on the lives of DHH children and adults. Much of this technology is designed to treat the auditory and communication needs of DHH children. Other uses include cognitive, linguistic, social, learning, and life-skills aspects. These technologies have become miniaturized, mobile, and affordable, making them ubiquitous. This chapter focuses on the use of advanced technology, such as wearable and wireless gesture control, virtual reality, augmented reality, robots, and artificial intelligence, in education for pedagogical purposes. The integration of technology in the learning processes of DHH children can potentially improve their abilities in several specific domains.

Oral Expressive Outcomes in Late-Identified Children With Hearing Loss

This case study described the oral expressive outcomes of five children with hearing loss who experienced prolonged auditory deprivation prior to participating in an auditory intervention. Expressive outcomes were measured by the number of spontaneous words and imitations. Visual analyses revealed that two of the five participants increased their oral expressive skills during the intervention. The results suggest that children with hearing loss who are late identified and aided can still develop some basic oral expressive skills, but they would probably benefit from interventions that directly target the use of words expressively.