I just stumbled across this AMAZING film by Adrean Mangiardi on The ASL-Cochlear Implant Blog.
Adrean Mangiardi, a bilateral CI User who directed this film, grew up oral but learned ASL when he was a film student at RIT.
Although this film is not in ASL, it is purely visual/symbolic with no dialogue except the end where it is captioned. The film called "Equilibrium" is a great experimental film and shows what it's like being bilateral.
"The purpose of this film is to express the director's perspective on cochlear implants and what's like to wear them. It is focusing on the struggle to balance between the old cochlear implant in the right side vs the new cochlear implant in the left side." (source from D-PAN website, www.dpan.com)
This film was featured in the PBS documentary, "Through Deaf Eyes", and was featured in March 2007. Congratulations, Adrean!
When I put Christian's implant on this morning, his eyes got all wide, and he cried for the first time with it on. Then, after about 10 seconds of me singing to him, and holding his little hand, he looked up at me with his big toothy grin, and laughed. I know he is adjusting to so much. I can't even begin to try to understand what exactly his little brain is doing with al the sound that it is trying to process. This video helped me put everything in perspective.
(Please disable the sound on the music player to your right)
4 comments:
Isn't this a wonderful video? I've seen it before and forgot about it. Was glad to see it again. . . thank you for posting it!
When we first get our CI's activated, putting it on is quite a shock. . .but over time it lessens and we get used to it. I can understand why Christian would cry when you put it on for him. But it gets better. And two CI's is better than one!
I heard some woodpeckers this morning when I went out to my mailbox to mail some letters and get the paper. . .and stopped to listen. I love starting my mornings with the birds! And Christian will, too.
That was a very interesting video.
I have hearing aids and not a CI, so my experience is clearly going to be different, when I wake up in the morning it does take me a while to get going, but once I am awake the first thing that I do is put my hearing aids in - I can't bear to be without them!
I don't get any sense of dissonance with my hearing aids and just love to be able to hear anything! (of course, when they break then it is a different matter altogether!!)
Interesting video....and can only imagine what it would be like for CI users.
I use one hearing aid and have 55 db hearing loss. With the hearing aid I have 30 db loss which is pretty good. Since I found my hearing aid in the pocket of my pant in washing machine...yup, it's not working anymore. I have a back-up but have been enjoying not wearing my hearing aid as of late. It's so nice....peaceful and I don't miss it..yeah, missed few calls here and there but I can always call back. I can hear a bit but not whole lot without it.
Sharon
I am Adrean's mom. So happy others are seeing his video. He has been an inspiration to all who know him!
Amanda Mangiardi
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