Teach Effectively!

Because I’ve not had regular access to television since circa 1985, I miss a lot of potentially interesting information (to say nothing of basketball). Thus, I wasn’t surprised when I found that I had missed the US Public Broadcasting System broadcast of a series about children and disabilities, “Gowing Up Different,” in 2001. I came upon the Website for this show because of a reference to a sound stream included in the segment.

The show provides a Quicktime demonstration of the quality of sound yielded by the technologies underlying cochlear implants. Cochlear implants are a combination of electronic devices (a microphone to sense sounds; a processor that selects and manipulates those sounds; a receiver and transmitter that convert the sounds to electric impulses; and electrodes that use the impulses to stimulate the brain) implanted under the skin on a person’s head; they can help a person who is deaf or hard of hearing to “hear.” I am fascinated by cochlear implants, as they provide an opportunity to study naive learners’ acquisition of the very complex skill of understanding spoken language.

It would be enormously helpful for educators and psychologists to study naive learning. We rarely have the chance to do so because learners come to us with so much—and such spotty—knowledge. Young children have usually, as the misdirectors of whole language noted, already learned to associate some symbols with spoken words (see the m-shaped arches [more likely the entire array], say “MacDonalds”) and perhaps even some letter names; they usually know that reading requires one to hold a book and say something. They are not naive learners. Individuals who have hearing devices surgically implanted suddenly have access to sound, something they haven’t had before. They are naive learners. What are the normal progressions in acquiring understanding of speech? How can we facilitate that acquisition efficiently?

I’ve often wondered what it is like to hear with someone else’s ears (and—teehee—assorted connected equipment). This was a helpful and interesting, if small, demonstration.

Link to the simulation and to Scientific American Frontiers, the show where it appeared. (I note that there is also a show about autism. I guess I’ll have to watch TV here on my 17-in, aging iMac.)