WEDNESDAY 1 TO SUNDAY 5 SEPTEMBER 2004
THE CHARTER THEATRE, PRESTON, LANCASHIRE

Imagine! Productions present
THE SECRET GARDEN - The Broadway Musical

Based on the classic novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, this musical version which received unanimous praise from Broadway and West End critics alike.

SIGNED PERFORMANCE: THURSDAY 2ND SEPTEMBER AT 7.30PM

Tickets: £12 (children), £15, £17 (adults).
All matinee seats £10, all Wednesday seats £12.
Family Ticket: £40
Groups of 8 or more: £8 (children), £10 (adults)

BOX OFFICE: 01772 258858

MEDIA CONTACT: Jonathan Sherwood (585) 273-4726

August 31, 2004

Short Term Memorys Effectiveness Influenced by Sight, Sound

For decades scientists have believed that people can only remember an ordered list of about seven items at a time such as seven grocery items or seven digits of a phone number but new research from the University of Rochester has shown that this magic number varies depending on whether the language used is spoken or signed. The results in the cover story of the latest issue of Nature Neuroscience have important implications for standardized tests, which often employ ordered-list retention as a measure of a persons mental aptitude.

When we hear things, we naturally process them in a series, says Daphne Bavelier, associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. When we hear music, for instance, it comes to us second by second, so the part of our brains that processes auditory information has evolved to absorb information in sequence. This means hearing a spoken list, such as numbers in an ATM code, corresponds more closely with what the auditory brain does naturally. Conversely, visual information comes to us simultaneously as we might see a sunset, clouds and a skyline all at the same time. While the visual processes in the brain can still remember ordered lists, they tend to be less effective at it, recalling an average of five numbers instead of seven.

In the 1960s, cognitive scientists showed that for nearly all speakers of all languages, list retention peaked at around seven items, plus or minus about two. As more languages were tested, a few exceptions were found, such as Chinese, that allows to hold nine items or Welsh that is nearer to five, but in all cases these variations were entirely predictable by the length of time it takes to utter the words in each language. The Chinese numbers used in the test happen to be very short and simple to pronounce, whereas Welsh ones are quite complex and take longer. In this context, deaf users of American Sign Language who had been known to recall only about five items were thought to do so because signs take longer to utter.

Baveliers graduate student, Mrim Boutla, was investigating visual memory and wanted to know more about American Sign Language and decided to test this view. The team devised studies to put sign language tests on equal footing with hearing-designed tests. To their surprise they found that even when signs were faster to pronounce than spoken language, signers recalled only five items. Even more surprising, when the team tested hearing individuals who were fluent in American Sign Language, such as people who had grown up with deaf siblings or parents, they found that the same people scored differently when asked to recall spoken lists in order, versus when they recalled signed lists. The discrepancy broke down as expected: seven heard items remembered, five signed items remembered. It was obvious that the regular ordered-item tests were not accurately evaluating the cognitive ability of deaf individuals in relation to those who could hear.

Up until this time, the predominant idea was that the magic number of seven was a good measure of overall cognitive capacity, likely utilizing the centers of the brain for memory and language. No one thought that perhaps a test for one kind of language might not work well for another language like sign languageresearchers had always assumed the tests were evaluating the same cognitive aspects of the brain, whether spoken or signed.

In a direct evaluation of the memory test itself, Bavelier designed an experiment that would test more directly the memory centers of the brain for language, without favoring auditory or visual processing. Instead of asking her subjects to recall the order of a list, a task at which the auditory brain is superior, Bavelier concentrated on devising a test that required recall, but not in the temporal order of the items. Both hearing and deaf subjects were given a list of words like boat and table and asked to recall those words in a well-formed sentence, such as The boat is on the water. The table is square. The order doesnt matter. When people tried this test, both speakers and signers performed equally well, showing that such a test is likely a much better evaluator of cognitive ability than the old ordered-item test.

Its a better test because it does not require temporal or spatial information to be maintained, but requires people to manipulate language information on the fly, which is really the hallmark of what language use is about, says Bavelier. Unfortunately, right now the old ordered-list test is still the test of choice in most educational and clinical settings.

Co-authors of the research include Elissa Newport, chair of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester, and Ted Supalla, associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences. This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the James S. McDonnell Foundation.

©1996–2004 · University of Rochester · Rochester, NY 14627

22-month-old Aliyah Huget has never clearly heard the sound of her mother's voice.
Developing technology may be about to change that

By JOSEPH GALLIVAN Issue date: Tue, Aug 31, 2004
The Tribune

Of all the amazing things they do up there on Pill Hill (tinkering with stem cells, splicing mouse DNA, popping open the hippocampus), nothing beats making a deaf person hear.

On July 13, a toddler named Aliyah Huget is up at the Hearing & Speech Institute, for just another game of "find the cow" with her infant-family specialist. Behind the one-way mirror in a consulting room full of toys, Norene Kennedy Broyles gets down on her knees and enters Aliyah's muffled world. It's Broyles' job to monitor the 22-month-old's sign language, and her incipient speech. Such as it is; Aliyah can say some vowels — "aah," "oo," "ee" — but nothing that would get her very far in a sandbox of her peers.

Aliyah's parents have decided that they want her to talk and hear, and they've arranged their lives around her weekly visits to the institute. Today she's come with her father, Brian, who hears fine. Her mother, Tracy, arrives with a knock at the door, which Aliyah may or may not have picked up on her hearing aid. Tracy was born deaf, but she speaks, lip-reads and uses some signs.

Whichever way the child eventually communicates, one of her parents will be at a disadvantage. They've chosen to get her a cochlear implant so she can hear more and, hopefully, learn to speak. As they play together on the carpet, only Aliyah doesn't know that today is the last day with the therapist before she goes for her operation.

Even the newest hearing aids, like the ones Aliyah and her mother use, only amplify sounds in the hope that a damaged ear can pick them up. A cochlear implant is far more bionic. The human ear contains a bony whorl — the cochlea — lined with about 30,000 hairlike cells that pick up air vibrations — sounds — and translate them into electrical signals for the brain. If these cells have been clear-cut by some disaster or defect, a hearing aid may not help.

An implant has a rubbery strip that unfurls inside the cochlea. Stuck to it is an array of 24 electrodes. These, an external microphone and a speech processor do a crude version of the job of the hair cells: converting sounds into electrical signals that the brain can understand. (This is what saved Rush Limbaugh's hearing in December 2001.)

"Right now Aliyah can hear sounds in the range of about 500 hertz," Brian explains. "That's like the sound of bouncing a tennis ball on a wooden floor." Tracy elaborates: "When this is done she could be able to hear up to 4,000 hertz, and 25 decibels of sound."

This should be enough to hear human speech, most of which falls into the 4,000 to 6,000 hertz range. Never mind car horns and symphonies, this is what counts if this little girl is to be socialized.

Part of audiologist Marsha Owen's job is to know what deaf people can hear.

"Once the implant is in, she'll be able to detect sound at fairly soft levels," she says. "Speech has all sorts of fine-tuned differences — timing, intensity, pitch, etc. — that tell the brain things like the difference between an 'Sss' and a 'Zzz.' Hearing sounds is one thing, but making use of that information and attaching meaning is the next part."

She adds that stimulating the brain electrically doesn't create the same sound. "Some adults have told us that sometimes it sounds like a robot speaking. I've heard one person say, 'Your voice sounds like Donald Duck,' " she says.

Aliyah's parents are a little uneasy. They've gone over it dozens of times. How the surgeon will carve out a piece of their child's skull the size of a dime behind her ear and implant the electrode array. Magnets keep this in contact with the coil on the outside. The child can disconnect it whenever she wants. A processor is worn around the waist.

Brian and Tracy live in Washington County. He's a home inspector, she's a systems analyst for the Internal Revenue Service. Insurance covers most of Aliyah's implant. The hardware costs about $6,000. There are three or four main manufacturers of cochlear implants, one of them a corporation called Cochlear. They went with the Cochlear Nucleus 24.

"The nice thing about Cochlear," Brian says, brightening after all this talk about hertz and decibels, "what sold us on it, was the support you get through the company — it's kind of like Dell computer, they send you a new product in 24 hours, you don't have to wait" for a replacement.

Waiting for a sign

By Aug. 17, the incision behind her ear from the July 24 implant operation has healed enough that Aliyah can wear the unit. In the waiting room she plays bubbles and Slinky and peekaboo, effortlessly charming the staff. Although they've practiced putting on the harness that holds the processor, Brian isn't sure what to expect at the moment when his daughter will be able to hear. Brian and Tracy look to the experts for whatever cues they can.

Their surgeon, Dr. Sean McMenomey of Oregon Health & Science University's department of otolaryngology, has done about 500 of these implants. "He's a real serious guy," Brian says, adding that they had a tense four-hour wait before the surgery even began. "But when he came out after the operation, he was grinning from ear to ear."

The Hearing & Speech Institute is a nonprofit organization, independent of OHSU. It's been up on Marquam Hill since 1927. For surgery though, patients are sent across the campus to OHSU Hospital.

Today, another audiologist, Donald Plapinger, is switching on the processor and tuning it. He sits at a computer running a Windows program that checks how the 22 active electrodes and two grounding electrodes are working. He's already done this once before with Aliyah, when she was unconscious in the operating room.

"It took three minutes, but if we had to do the whole thing now it would take three hours, getting her to sit still." Plapinger is intense and matter of fact. He warns the parents not to expect too much. He has to balance the needs of the child and her parents with getting to his next appointment.

He starts implant recipients off at a very low sound level, so as not to scare them. "My idea of a good first day is when they come in wearing (the processor) the second day," he says.

Aliyah whimpers a little when it goes on, but soon she focusses on eating animal crackers and playing with a plush koala bear. It's wearing a Cochlear Corp. T-shirt and a Velcro patch behind its ear for a toy implant. Aliyah largely ignores the adults around her, who play, but with one eye on the monitor.

After a while she gets bored and pulls off the earpiece. Plapinger lets her keep it off while he shows the parents how to turn up the volume.

"Always start at zero and turn it up slowly," he cautions.

Implants aren't for all

Plapinger and Broyles confirm that the implant business is booming. OHSU does 60 a year now, and 60 percent of the hearing-impaired kids Broyles works with have them. Today babies can be diagnosed with hearing loss at 10 days, and as soon as they can keep them on, they get hearing aids and therapy. Tracy was 2 1/2 before her deafness was diagnosed.

Plapinger explains that many deaf people look down on implants.

"It's not so much now, but this was very, very controversial in the deaf community," he says. "The thought was implants would kill the deaf culture. The deaf culture is a very powerful culture, it is based on a commonality of American Sign Language, so if you can talk, you're not going to use ASL. If you're an oral deaf adult, like Tracy, you'd not be considered to be part of the deaf culture."

As an insight into the fractious world of the deaf, Plapinger cites the documentary "The Sound and the Fury" about familial strife when deaf and hearing adults marry.

"I see Aliyah as someone who was born to hear," he adds, definitively.

At one point Brian goes to put the unit back on the girl's head, forgetting to turn the level back to zero. It's the equivalent of jamming in the iPod headphones in the middle of a song, albeit at about volume level 2. Aliyah jolts slightly, then carries on playing.

The adults in the room immediately start analyzing: Did it hurt? Can she hear? Will she reject it? The father learns his lesson about checking the volume levels. They play for a few more minutes, then their time is up.

Afterward, Brian is noticeably relieved.

"The fact that she was leaving it alone is good. … I don't know, maybe deep down inside I thought maybe she was going to start talking right away, but it doesn't quite happen that way, does it?"

The next few weeks are crucial as her parents attend therapy sessions and try to teach her the meaning of the new sounds she is hearing.

Thanks to medical science, maybe one day they'll be able to talk about it.

© 2004 THE PORTLAND TRIBUNE

HELLO FRIENDS OF THE DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING COMMUNITY:

It is still time for you to purchase tickets by MAIL to our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Day at Six Flags Magic Mountain Amusement Park in Valencia, California on Saturday September 18th.

Many rides are operational including Scream, a unique floorless coaster with 360 degree inversions including: a cobra roll, a zero gravity roll, and a dive loop. Six Flags Magic Mountain is still the theme park where Thrills Rule!!!!! There are over 12 roller coasters working, the park will also have numerous other rides, shops, arcades, and food courts open for your enjoyment. We will also have Communication Assistants and ASL Interpreters at the park if you need them.

Please come out and support our Deaf and Hard of Hearing event, so that we may keep bringing you this event.

You can also choose to download the flyer PDF from this email attachment and print a copy then mail us the form with your payment. We will mail you your tickets after we get your payment. Our mailing address is:

WRAD, Inc.
PO Box 3211
Quartz Hill, CA 93586

Tickets are only $21.00 per person if you purchase them before September 18.
Tickets are $25.00 per person if you purchase them on the day of the event at our WRAD Will Call Table. ( SAVE OVER 50% as General Use Ticket is $46.99 per person so with our discount it is a big savings for you if you mail them in advance!!!!) Children 2 and under are FREE.

$21 Discount tickets MUST be purchased by mail in advance BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11 to the WRAD PO BOX or you can buy them from one of the persons listed below that are selling tickets for WRAD:

Rey Llarano at wradvicepresident@yahoo.com
Bruce Gross at wradceo@aol.com
Robert Medress at leaprob@aol.com
Richard Mercado at rmercado72@hotmail.com
Brandon Jones at brandon160145@yahoo.com
Wendy Rieth at freedrum76@yahoo.com

You can choose to send your payment directly to WRAD as we accept personal checks (BY SEPTEMBER 5th) , Money Order or Cashier's Check or with your credit card like Visa or Mastercard or American express. ONLY CASH ACCEPTED ON THE DAY OF THE EVENT ON SEPTEMBER 18.

Additional tickets will be available at the WRAD Will Call Table for $25 between 9:30am and 1pm only on September 18th. Parking is $8 per vehicle.

For more information contact WRADCEO@aol.com or FAX 661-943-8879.

Personal Checks will be accepted until September 5. After September 5th send only money order or cashier's check until September 10th. Mail orders must be postmarked by September 10. Late orders will be held for pick up at the WRAD "Will Call" table on September 18 between 9:30am and 1pm.

RAIN OR SHINE NO REFUNDS.

Hope to see you at Six Flags Magic Mountain!!!!!

Sincerely,

Bruce Gross
CEO, WRAD, Inc.
Hearing Loss Outreach is a Subsidiary of the WRAD, Inc. organization
----------
(NOTICE: Deaf Today does not have PDF available for download so email Bruce Gross at wradceo@aol.com for that flyer PDF to be emailed to you)

Hello,
 We are proud to announce that our Permanent Cosmetic School, now has full time instruction for the hearing impaired.
We are located in Riverside California
Please visit our website, and pass this great news along.
www.EffortlessBeauty.com  
 
Thank you and have a wonderful day,
 
Ronald and Barbara Herrera
Effortless Beauty School of Permanebt Cosmetics

PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT
Release date: August 30, 2004
Contact: Erin Casler, CSD Public Relations Department
ecasler@c-s-d.org
(605) 367-5761

CSD NOMINATED FOR GLOBAL CALL CENTER OF THE YEAR AWARD

SIOUX FALLS (August 30, 2004)— The Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP) has nominated CSD for the Call Center of the Year Award, which will be presented on Tuesday, Sept. 14 in Seattle at the Annual Call Center Exhibition (ACCE).

"The SWPP Board of Advisors was very impressed with the accomplishments of CSD and its operations in general. We felt that CSD's passion for its mission to the deaf and hard of hearing community has distinguished it from other call center providers, and we are proud that CSD is a part of our organization," said Vicki Herrell, executive director of SWPP.

CSD, as well as eight other call centers, will receive a Call Center of the Year Award. The nine winning call centers are sponsored by six international associations. The other attending winners are from Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The sponsors of this award include Incoming Call Management Institute (ICMI), CMP Media and ACCE.

As part of the awards ceremony, ACCE will be showing a musical montage of footage submitted by all the nominated organizations. CSD submitted 20 minutes of footage shot at several of its centers nationwide; footage included interviews with Communication Assistants (CAs), Customer Service Representatives (CSRs), Video Relay Interpreters (VRIs), as well as members of senior management.

"We have 20 CSD call centers across the country that fulfills a wide spectrum of communication needs; CSD's call centers are composed of three divisions that work in concert to serve a singular purpose—enabling communication and at the end of the day helping the deaf and hard of hearing community. We would not be receiving this accolade if not for the dedication of our employees in the call centers," said Benjamin Soukup, chief executive officer of CSD.

About CSD – CSD (also known as Communication Service for the Deaf, Inc.) was established in 1975, primarily to provide sign language interpreting services to deaf and hard of hearing adults in South Dakota. Today, CSD employs over 3,000 individuals in offices across the nation, providing a broad continuum of social and human services programs, as well as telecommunications relay services. CSD is a private nonprofit agency dedicated to providing quality services; ensuring public accessibility; and increasing awareness of issues affecting the deaf, hard of hearing and individuals with speech disabilities. For more information, please visit www.c-s-d.org.

About SWPP - The Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP) is an organization devoted to facilitating education and networking opportunities among workforce planners across all industries. Membership in SWPP is available to all workforce planning professionals and other interested parties from consulting and vendor organizations. Both individual memberships and corporate membership options are available, with full benefits and costs outlined on the organization's website at www.swpp.org.

– 30 –

MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- HEI, Inc. (Nasdaq: HEII) ( http://www.heii.com ) today announced that Cochlear, the world leader in Cochlear Implant technologies, has entered into an agreement with HEI, Inc. to manufacture several of their high density rigid-flex printed circuit boards for implantable hearing devices. The scope of work will include current and future applications, with revenue in the range of $1.5-1.8M per year.

"We are excited that Cochlear has chosen HEI to produce their high-density PCB applications," stated Simon Hawksworth, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for HEI, Inc. "HEI offers Cochlear both technical and production solutions, and it is an excellent match with our core competencies in high- density interconnect."

HEI, Inc. designs, develops and manufactures microelectronics, subsystems, systems, connectivity and software solutions for OEMs engaged in the medical equipment and medical device, hearing, communications and RFID industries. HEI provides its customers with a single point of contact that can take an idea from inception to a fully functional, cost effective and manufacturable product by utilizing innovative design solutions and the application of state-of-the-art materials, processes and manufacturing capabilities.

Headquarters & Microelectronics Operations
PO Box 5000, 1495 Steiger Lake Lane, Victoria, MN 55386

Advanced Medical Operations
4801 North 63rd Street, Boulder, CO 80301

High Density Interconnect Operations
610 South Rockford Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281

RF Identification and Smart Card Operations
1546 Lake Drive West, Chanhassen, MN 55317

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

Information in this news release, which is not historical, includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements contained in this press release, including the implementation of business strategies, including a stronger sales emphasis; growth of specific markets; improved results, profitability, cash flow, margins, and revenues; and estimated HEI revenues, cash flow, expenses and profits, are forward looking statements. All of such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, continuing adverse business and market conditions, the ability of HEI to secure and satisfy customers, the availability and cost of materials from HEI's suppliers, HEI's ability to satisfy financial or other obligations or covenants set forth in its banking agreements, adverse competitive developments, change in or cancellation of customer requirements, the integration of the Advanced Medical Operations, collection of outstanding debt, HEI's ability to succeed on the merits and defend against litigation, and other risks detailed from time to time in HEI's SEC filings. HEI undertakes no obligation to update these statements to reflect ensuing events or circumstances, or subsequent actual results.

SOURCE HEI, Inc.
Web Site: http://www.heii.com

Copyright © 1996-2004 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights Reserved.

A GROUP of deaf and mute students are out to make a living for themselves by producing handcrafted cards, which will be sold from selected outlets soon.

What started as an art class for the youths in Lautoka a few weeks ago, is today a budding business which will earn them a few dollars at the end of the week.

A Lautoka-based non-government organisation, Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprises and Development (FRIEND), gathered the youths who had been looking for jobs for a while.

Co-ordinator of the programme Nileshni Shekhar taught participants how to make small paper roses, paint dried grass and sand and design and cut cards. Within a week, the group started producing cards of different designs from their imagination.

Salaseini Nakacia Nabure, 19 of Nasolo Village in Ba, has six siblings and she is the eldest. Her father is a casual worker and she was looking for a job for the last two years. She joined the card-making programme and now earns a few dollars to look after herself and help her family.

Copyright © 2004, Fiji Times Limited. All Rights Reserved

By Volt Contreras
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A1 of the August 30, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

OF ALL the schools in the country, this one might be the least expected to put much thought and effort into the celebration of "Buwan ng Wikang Pambansa," or National Language Month, which the country marks every August.

But they do take the commemoration seriously at the Southeast Asian Institute for the Deaf (Said), a special learning center in Miriam College in Quezon City.

While the government constantly urges the youth to improve their English, the students--who communicate and receive instructions through sign language based on English--wish they could be as good in comprehending Filipino.

The Inquirer visited the school last Friday in line with a "Buwan ng Wika" program that it is staging today. With one of the teachers serving as an interpreter, an interview with some high school students proved to be quite a revelation:

Jemima, 16, said simple phone text or Internet chat room messages in Filipino had sent her "running to my sister for a translation."

She said phrases, such as "Ano gusto mo (What do you want)?" or "Saan ka (Where are you)?" had been quite a hurdle the first time she encountered them. Until now, she said, she would sometimes ask for English "re-sends" of certain Filipino messages.

Mark, 14, admitted that he understood "only some of the words" of the national anthem, "Lupang Hinirang."

When the teacher once asked her to finger-spell a common street sign, "Bawal Tumawid (Do Not Cross)," Andrea, 16, said she could make out the first half, but "Tumawid" she grasped only when the corresponding English hand sign was given.

Two other street signs, "Mapanganib" and "Nakamamatay," were just as alien to the students in finger-spelling. The teachers had to give them the translation, "dangerous."

A more telling experience was shared by an alumnus, Karl Limson, 22. He recounted that, travelling unaccompanied one day when he was still in high school, he was arrested for jaywalking at the Edsa-Shaw crossing because the sign "Bawal Tumawid Dito" meant nothing to him.

The traffic officer realized soon enough that he was dealing with a deaf person. So he slapped no fines on Karl, but merely scribbled something on a piece of paper and gave it to the boy by way of pardoning him.

"Problem was, he also wrote it in Filipino!" a smiling Karl said in sign language.

Gertie Fermin, the teacher facilitating the interview, recounted a disturbing incident. "Years ago, I heard about a Grade 6 pupil who entered somebody else's yard without understanding the sign on the gate."

The sign was "Mag-ingat sa Aso (Beware of Dog)," she said. "Naturally, the dog chased her."

Help on the way

According to Fermin, educators for the deaf have already devised Filipino Sign Language or FSL, which she hoped would help.

She said FSL would help in making basic Filipino terms readily comprehensible, including words for ugly or beautiful, expensive or cheap, many or none, empty or full. Also, the equivalents of such common phrases, such as "Good morning" and "Thank you."

But, Fermin lamented, try to convey Filipino synonyms for "love," such as "pag-ibig" and especially the more poetic "pag-irog" or "pagsinta," and the students would surely have a hard time.

Only recently, she said, she also found that some of the children didn't know the meaning of "pinggan(plate)" and "baso (drinking glass)."

Sure, they can read even multisyllabic Filipino words, but only "phonetically and with poor comprehension," said Fermin's fellow teacher, Jojie Alcantara.

The two warned that this could pose "some difficulties," as the students' experiences had illustrated.

And so today, according to Fermin, Said students will mark "Buwan ng Wika" and show their appreciation of the national language through some sort of a talent show.

They will act out comic strips that they themselves drew and wrote in a presentation dubbed "Karikatura." The performers will depict campus life--secret crushes, classroom pranks, teenage problems--and deliver the all-Filipino dialogue in sign language.

That's definitely more than paying lip service to the nationwide exaltation of the native tongue.

copyright 2004 www.INQ7.net all rights reserved

By Denise Jewell djewell@sjnewsco.com

PITMAN --Stephen Gregory will finally get a transcript of his day in court.

For eight years the Pitman resident, who is deaf, has been fighting the state's Administrative Office of the Courts to provide him with a written version of court proceedings.

Gregory, who uses a Computer Aided Real-Time Translation system to follow words spoken in the court, requested in 1996 that the state provide him with a written printout of the system's translation, which is typically scrolled on a computer monitor.

After the state denied his requests, Gregory sued the state three years later over the records issue in April 1999.

"It was mind-boggling to me that the state of New Jersey would take that kind of position," said Richard Schall, a Moorestown-based attorney who represented Gregory.

In a settlement finalized on June 30 shortly before the case was set to go to trial in federal court, the state agreed to provide the printouts to Gregory whenever he appears in Superior Court, the Appellate Division, or the state's Supreme Court, Schall said.

The state also agreed to pick up the $75,000 legal tab that Gregory racked up fighting for the state to accommodate his disability.

"I would hate to think that this is how our government is spending our tax dollars," Schall said.

While the state provides audio and videotapes of court proceedings for $10 a tape, Gregory had requested the printouts as a comparable service to fit his disability.

Schall said Gregory sought the written printout of the computer transcript --a real-time display of the court reporter's transcription -- in order to better follow the court proceedings.

Although the state did not agree to provide the printouts to all deaf litigants, Schall said he thought Gregory's legal settlement could help other disabled citizens in the future.

"Five years is a long time to get something that they're offering to the general public for 10 bucks," Schall said.

Copyright 2004 Gloucester County Times.

By: Capital News 9 web staff

The Vermont Department of Aging and Disabilities has been found to have discriminated against a deaf woman in violation of the state's Fair Employment Practices Act.

Marjorie Wells of Montpelier, a former vocational rehabilitation counselor in the department, complained to the Human Rights Commission about her treatment by supervisors in the Barre office.

The commission found that Wells had grounds to complain that her work environment was hostile to her because she was deaf and had become deaf as an adult.

The department has agreed to pay Wells $30,000 and to draft a new policy on sensitivity to people who become deaf as adults.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved.

HT Correspondent Shimla, August 29

IN A gruesome incident on the outskirts of the capital town, a deaf and dumb girl was allegedly raped at Majerh village under the Dhalli police station. In another incident, a minor was allegedly raped in the Summerhill locality.

As per the FIR registered at the Dhalli police station by Naresh Kumar, his daughter was raped by Ashwani Kumar of the same village. The complainant alleged that Ashwani took advantage of the disability of his daughter and raped her. Naresh said his daughter had also conceived. The police have registered a case under sections 376 and 323 of the Indian Penal Code and have arrested Ashok Kumar.

In a separate incident in the town, a minor girl was allegedly raped in Summerhill locality of the town. The police report stated that a 14-year-old student of eighth class was raped by a university daily wager, Mukesh Kumar.

According to preliminary investigations conducted by the police, when the girl student returned from her school at about 10.30 am on Friday, Mukesh Kumar barged into the house and bolted the door from inside to rape her. The girl's parents were not at home that time.

A police official said Mukesh tied both the hands of the girl before raping her. When she raised an alarm, Mukesh covered her face with a piece of cloth. Mukesh also threatened the girl of dire consequence in case she reported the incident to her parents or to the police.

After committing the crime, Mukesh fled from the victim's house.

The girl narrated the incident to her mother when she returned home.

The parents of the girl lodged a complaint with the Boileauganj police station on Saturday evening. The police have registered a case under sections 376,342 and 452 of the IPC. However, the culprit is still at large.

Councillor of the Summerhill municipal ward Rajeev Thakur has sharply criticised the rape incident. Thakur alleged that the girl students in Shimla were unsafe as the incidents of crime against women were witnessing a rapid increase. He said anti-social elements in the town were targeting the girl students.

He said after the acid throwing incident in the town, the police had announced to increase vigil around the girls' educational institutions, but nothing happened on the ground. He said the police failure to arrest the culprit would invite an agitation from the people of the locality.

© HT Media Ltd. 2004.

Ohio Valley Voices: New location sought

By Sheila McLaughlin
Enquirer staff writer

MONTGOMERY - Maria Sentelik rounds the back corner of the small ranch off Zig Zag Road that doubles as a school, thinking out loud before stepping inside.

"What kind of trouble could possibly be caused by a bunch of deaf babies who leave at noon?"

It's a question that's been eating at her lately.

For two years, Sentelik, the executive director of Ohio Valley Voices, has scouted out land for a new place to accommodate the growing number of students at the oral school for the deaf. It hasn't been easy.

Just last week, she successfully argued for a one-year reprieve so the school could continue operating out of the basement of Montgomery Presbyterian Church, as well as a trailer and house next door, where the school branched out. It opened in 2000 with a dozen students and now has 32 students, nine of them age 3 or younger.

A small group of neighbors complained about trash on the church lot and groups of teens congregating at night behind the trailer, things that Montgomery city officials decided were beyond the school's control.

Sycamore Township officials this month rejected her request to build a 19,000-square-foot school for 50 kids on Plainfield Road, after neighbors objected. They said the $2.5 million project would be too big, too close and would generate too much traffic.

"It's a great school, but the wrong location," said Sycamore zoning administrator Greg Bickford

Now, Sentelik is eyeing property off Branch Hill-Guinea Pike on three acres near Arrowhead Apartments in Clermont County's Miami Township. She's keeping her fingers crossed that things will work out this time, even going door-to-door trying to sell her idea to the potential neighbors. She tells them:

"Most schools in that area are 72,000 square feet with 500 children in them. We are building a 19,000-square-foot building with 50 children in it. It's four times smaller."

Meanwhile, children are being turned away at Ohio Valley Voices, she said.

The beginning

Ohio Valley Voices started with a few parents who wanted their deaf children to speak. They sought out the Moog Center for Deaf Education in St. Louis and garnered enough interest locally to open a school here.

Since then, attendance has nearly tripled, staff has doubled and classes have expanded.

Among students at Ohio Valley Voices are kids with cochlear implants. The electronic device, surgically implanted under the skin behind one ear, sends sound impulses to the brain.

The thought is that by kindergarten age, or maybe second grade, these kids will be able to speak and read so they can mainstream into traditional schools.

School day

Last week, after the tears and excitement of the first day back to school subsided, the preschoolers got down to business.

They broke into groups of two or four in different rooms. They counted aloud, repeated the months of the year, learned new vocabulary words and followed their teacher's instruction to use them in full sentences.

"Even snack time is all about talking," Sentelik said.

The classrooms are full of success stories. One boy recently entered the first grade reading at a third-grade level, Sentelik said.

Louisa Peet, 5, of Goshen Township, will leave Ohio Valley Voices next year for kindergarten, where she will join her hearing identical twin at a Montessori school near Loveland. This is Louisa's third year at the oral deaf school.

"This has been the most wonderful place to send my daughter," said her dad, Kelly. "She went from deaf to indistinguishable. If you didn't see the device, you wouldn't know."

Clermont County is farther than Sentelik would like the school to be. It needs to be convenient to parents who drive their kids from as far away as Wilmington and Indiana, she said.

But other options fell through, and buildings in a better location were too costly. The school has $700,000 to get the building started, as well as a matching grant from a non-profit St. Louis organization that helps open oral schools for the deaf.

Ohio Valley Voices at a glance

What: A school that teaches deaf children and those with severe hearing loss, from 18 months old through second grade, to speak so they can be mainstreamed into traditional schools.

Where: 9994 Zig Zag Road, Montgomery.

History: Founded by local parents, the school opened in July 2000. It is associated with Moog Center for Deaf Education in St. Louis and funded through tuition, grants, fund-raisers and private donations.

Information: 791-1458 or http://www.oraldeafed.org/schools/ohio/

Copyright 1995-2004. The Cincinnati Enquirer, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper.

A deaf and mute Cherry Hill woman who was last seen Aug. 16 has been reported missing, police said.

Josephine Pokorsky, 74, of Evergreen Avenue, has heart disease, high blood pressure, and dementia. She is described as white, 5-foot-2, and about 90 pounds. She is known to frequent Merchantville and the Cherry Hill Mall, said Detective Sgt. Joe Vitarelli, a spokesman for the Cherry Hill police.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Cherry Hill Police Department at 856-488-7828.

© 2004 Philadelphia Inquirer and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.

Karachi - Cochlear Implant is a miracle treatment, which restores the hearing ability of the deaf children. This was stated by Prof Dr Lokman Saim, Dean Kebangsaan University, Malaysia, while speaking at a seminar organised by Ziauddin Medical University.

He said the children with less severe hearing loss could be benefited with hearing aids. The available hearing aids work up to a certain limit of hearing defect. For more severe hearing losses there was no option to rectify the hearing disorder before the era of cochlear implants.

Prof. Dr. Lokman Saim said that the speech and language development in children depend upon their hearing ability. Thus the deaf child also have to suffer with a second disability of speech impairment in addition to the problem of hearing. The children with this defect have a problem of malfunctioning inner ear technically called cochlea. The cochlear implant is actually an electronic device, which is surgically implanted in the inner ear, which takes over the function of non-working cochlea he added.

He further said that with this new technology the hurdle in the path of sound is removed and the sound can pass to the brain like a hearing persons. Thus the hearing ability is restored. After this operation the child can develop the ability of speech and can become a productive member of the society instead of passing miserable life as deaf and mute child.

Thus cochlear implant is one of the greatest blessings of modern medical technology.

Professor Lokman Saim also explained different surgical techniques involved in the implantation process. Professor Abbas Zafar of Ziauddin Medical University while welcoming the distinguished speaker stated that the cochlear implant treatment is a miracle of medical technology in treating and rehabilitating deaf children to make them productive members of the society. Dr. Khalid Mahida talked about the drastic effects of deafness on the life of children and the importance of cochlear implant treatment for these children. Dr. Abid Saeed, audiologist, guided the young doctors about new features in the implant systems.

Amina Siddiqui of ZMU emphasized the importance of speech therapy in rehabilitating implanted children and informed that the university would continue to organize such seminars inviting distinguished experts from abroad as well as from our own country.

Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.