Gorillas Are Much Closer to Speaking Than We Think - http://clapway.com/2015/08/15/gorillas-are-much-closer-to-speaking-than-we-think435/

Scientists have assumed that apes are not capable of speaking, due to their lack of proper breathing control and cognitive capacity to preconcert organised speech. What has been believed traditionally, is that any vocal sound gorillas performed was just a spontaneous noise, but now Marcus Perlman from the University of Wisconsin, claims that gorillas may be closer to speaking than we all thought.

How Do We Know?

Perlman and his colleague Nathaniel Clark from the University of California, worked closely with the infamous 40-year-old gorilla Koko, who is known for her ability to communicate with humans using, amazingly, American Sign Language. The researchers, after recording a 71-hour-long video footage of her and then analyzing it, discovered that Koko has developed behaviors which have never been demonstrated by other gorillas. Koko, can blow her nose using a tissue, play wind instruments for fun, cough when researchers ask her to, and chatter into a telephone.

Is Koko Special or Can Gorillas Talk?

Marcus Perlman says that Koko stands on the fine line between gorillas and humans, since her behaviors did not come from being raised in the wild, but from her absorption into a human world: “Koko doesn’t produce a pretty, periodic sound when she performs these behaviors, like we do when we speak, but she can control her larynx enough to produce a controlled grunting sound.” The fact that Koko has been living with humans since she was just six years old is something that leads scientists to believe that all of her ‘special abilities’ are not special at all, because they can all be learned. As Marcus Perlman says, the fact that the human environment she has been living for her whole life is quite different to the things we see in wild populations, is what made her efficient at these uncommon behaviors.

What Does This Mean For Science?

There were a couple of teams of psychologists back in the 1940s, that raised chimpanzees as human children in order to teach them how to speak, but their efforts turned out to be a total failure. That’s when researchers formed an idea that gorillas cannot control their vocalizations and their breathing. However, ­the study that was published by Perlman and Clark, gives important information about our own evolution and how much time humans needed in order to speak. Scientists have reported that the last progenitor with gorillas was around about 10 million years ago and Perlman’s study indicates that the evolutionary groundwork for the human ability to speak was in place at least by that time.

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Gorillas Are Much Closer to Speaking Than We Think

I would really love to know what other members of the deaf community think about gene therapy and how they feel about the possibility of hearing again. - http://clapway.com/2015/07/13/how-gene-therapy-might-restore-hearing-in-the-future/

Hearing loss affects five percent of the population. Five percent doesn’t sound like a lot, but in reality, it’s 360 million people worldwide. That’s a lot of people. As you know from my previous blogs, there’s a special place in my heart for the deaf community, so I find any related information interesting. When I saw the study done with gene therapy on deaf mice, I had to find out more.

The Deaf Culture

Many adults who are deaf were not born that way. I had a teacher when I was learning Sign Language explain to us that she was born hearing, but lost the ability as a child due to meningitis.

Medical technology was not as advanced and this is the outcome for several older deaf people. While deafness can be caused by various circumstances, it is not always the case that a person who is deaf would prefer the ability to hear.

Speaking from my experience in the community, I have known people who are perfectly happy and healthy being deaf and when asked if the opportunity ever arose to change their hearing status, they say they would decline. I know that part of the reason, for a few of these people, is that they don’t want to go through surgery to implant devices or have to mess with hearing aids all the time. They’ve lived their whole lives being deaf and don’t see it as a “disorder” or a “disability.” However, there are those that would accept a change in their hearing abilities. Each person will have their own opinion, and nothing is wrong with either side of it, but I’m very interested to see how this gene therapy study will impact the community.

What is Gene Therapy?

Gene therapy is a type of treatment still in the experimental phase. It involves taking genetic material and introducing it into a person’s cells to fight, or in some cases prevent, a disease. Research is being done with a number of diseases to see how well gene therapy will work in each scenario.

These diseases include immune deficiency disorders, Parkinson’s, some forms of cancer and even HIV. Various approaches are being taken in the testing process, such as replacing a mutated gene, taking out a mutated gene, or introducing a new gene into the body.

Restored Hearing in Mice with Genetic Deafness

While this study is still very experimental, researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School have had successfully restored the hearing of mice with a genetic deafness in their test group. Improvements still need to be made, and while this type of therapy isn’t quite ready for clinical trials, the researchers are hopeful that they can be working with people in the near future.

As I mentioned before, the people I know are very torn on the subject. While I think it’s an enormous breakthrough for people who have lost their hearing later in life, I’m not sure that people who were born deaf would feel the same way.

I would really love to know what other members of the deaf community think about gene therapy and how they feel about the possibility of hearing again. Are you a part of the community? I’d love to hear your thoughts below in the comments section! 

How Gene Therapy Might Restore Hearing in the Future

Crossing the bridge of language in deaf culture.- http://clapway.com/2015/06/22/my-2-wonderful-years-in-the-deaf-culture/

Austin has an incredible deaf community. We have the Austin School for the Deaf and a great Interpreter program at Austin Community College. While attending college, I was required to take a foreign language and I decided on American Sign Language. It’s something that was on my bucket list of things to learn and I was so excited at the opportunity to do so.

I took the class for 4 semesters and it came very naturally to me. I’m an animated speaker so I use my hands when I talk anyway; why not be saying something with them too? I’ve made friends with so many deaf students and tutors from school, and it honestly is something that still excites me today to be able to talk to a deaf guest when they come into my restaurant.

Many people don’t know that being deaf is not a “handicap.”

To put it simply, deaf culture is just like any other culture where there might be a language barrier. Just as the Germans speak German and we speak English, deaf people speak ASL. Well not speak, but you get my point. Some people actually do speak.

I had a guest back when I was bartending who spoke to me and ordered her meal and drinks and I didn’t notice anything about it. She turned to look at the menu and I asked her a question. When she didn’t respond, I realized she didn’t hear me at all.

It’s actually more common for older deaf people to have some speaking abilities because for many years, their parents sent them to schools that taught them to be like us instead of teaching them how to communicate in their own language; to communicate in a way that they could instead of forcing them to pretend they could hear.

At the time, it was definitely seen as a handicap and parents didn’t want their children to be different. The culture was something that was still new and being learned about. Also, let’s just clear this up right now: if someone is deaf, it does not mean they can read your lips. That’s actually quite an offensive assumption to a deaf person.

Deaf people feel music much more than hearing people.

The most interesting thing I learned about deaf culture (and I really learned so many interesting things) was how they “hear” things. As an ASL student, we were required to attend different deaf events to acclimate ourselves to the culture. One of the first events I went to was an after party for the deaf school’s homecoming game. They had a hardcore band that took the stage by storm! These kids were so good. I was so amazed, and still learning, and didn’t even think of the fact that they could feel the sound vibrations on the stage. That’s how they kept tempo. They were awesome.

“Hearing” Gadgets Galore! Deaf Technology has advanced so much.

There are many different devices that deaf people use to communicate. First, let me mention cochlear implants, which have given many members of the deaf community another option. Basically, these little guys are implanted behind or above the ear and give the ear a sense of sound. I think, as a hearing person, one of the most convenient forms of technology to come out for distance communication is the FaceTime function on the iPhone. For many years, technology has been trying to encompass this concept and there have been devices created with this function, but none that I’ve seen (again, as a hearing person) that is as able and at-your-fingertips.

Earlier this year, the FDA approved a gadget that allows deaf people to “hear” with their tongue. It may not immediately sound like the most appealing way to communicate, but the science behind it is pretty cool. I’m sure your first though was someone licking all over a cell phone-like device. Maybe that was just me?

The FDA has also recently approved a device that will similarly help a blind person to “see.” This new form of “hearing” or “seeing” doesn’t require a surgical implant, unlike the cochlear implant, and is expected to be more affordable. In the same way that the implant sends signals to stimulate the auditory nerve, this new device will take sounds and convert them into patterns and impulses which will then be sent to a smart retainer held the in the mouth. The retainer, when pressed by the tongue, will send out tiny impulses in patterns to stimulate the tongue’s nerves. From there, the signals are relayed to the brain. The similar device made for the blind does the same thing, but will send different patterns for different colors in an image. It records with a camera, attached to a pair of glasses, the person’s surroundings and sends the signals to the mouthpiece.

Crossing The Bridge of Language

I know I’m excited to see how this device adds to my local deaf community. Technology has become such an incredible resource to many different cultures and now even more so to the deaf culture. While most of the technologies mentioned take time to adjust to, and require some training, it’s awesome to see more and more options become available to help bridge the language barrier between so many different cultures.

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My 2 Wonderful Years in the Deaf Culture