Graeme Clark Collection
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ItemDesign fundamentals for electrotactile devices: the Tickle Talker case study(Whurr, 1995)Since the work of Gault in the 1920s, the literature has chronicled the development of numerous tactile devices for use by the hearing impaired in improving communication. Devices have been developed to target improvements in both speech perception and speech production. In each development, the inventors have attempted to encode speech information through stimulation of the intact kinaesthetic system of the individual, as a supplement or replacement for speech input available from the damaged auditory pathway.
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ItemHabilitation issues in the management of children using the cochlear multiple-channel cochlear prosthesis(Wien, 1994)Since 1985, a significant proportion of patients seen in the Melbourne cochlear implant clinic have been children. The children represent a diverse population, with both congenital and acquired hearing-impairments, a wide-range of hearing levels pre-implant, and an age range from 2 years to 18 years. The habilitation programme developed for the overall group must be flexible enough to be tailored to the individual needs of each child, and to adapt to the changing needs of children as they progress. Long-term data shows that children are continuing to show improvements after 5-7 years of device use, particularly in their perception of open-set words and sentences. Habilitation programs must therefore be geared to the long-term needs of children and their families. Both speech perception and speech production need to be addressed in the specific content of the habilitation program for any individual child. In addition, for young children, the benefits of improved speech perception should have an impact on development of speech and language, and the focus of the programme for this age child will reflect this difference in emphasis. Specific materials and approaches will vary for very young children, school-age and teenage children. In addition, educational setting will have a bearing on the integration of listening and device use into the classroom environment.
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ItemThe potential benefit and cost-effectiveness of tactile devices in comparison with cochlear implants(Whurr, 1993)The use of the word 'potential' in the title of this chapter implies that the discussion must be somewhat speculative in attempting to foresee the benefits and costs of cochlear implants in the future. It is now much easier to do this than it would have been five or ten years ago, although there still remain many unanswered questions about their use, especially for hearing-impaired children. As far as possible, the assumptions and opinions expressed in this chapter are based on fact but in some cases reflect the subjective bias of the authors. (These opinions are not necessarily shared by other contributors to this book.) In particular, one author (PJB) has been involved in cochlear implant research for over ten years and began developing a tactile device in 1984 as a control device in studies of cochlear implants in children. Children and adults using this device have produced results comparable to those for some groups of cochlear implant patients. Despite these results, which exceeded initial expectations, there is still some bias in favour of the cochlear implant.