{"id":19751,"date":"2022-09-15T15:56:05","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T19:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=19751"},"modified":"2023-04-10T11:37:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-10T15:37:46","slug":"furman-senior-plans-to-keep-helping-the-hearing-impaired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/furman-senior-plans-to-keep-helping-the-hearing-impaired\/","title":{"rendered":"Furman senior hopes to keep helping the hard of hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alana Epstein \u201923 doesn\u2019t remember getting her first cochlear implant as a 1-year-old, or her second at age 3. But she\u2019s seen the video of the day she was \u201cturned on\u201d \u2013 the term audiologists use for activating an implant for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very overwhelming,\u201d said Epstein, who was born deaf. \u201cIn the video, I\u2019m hearing one of the first sounds I heard with the implants, and you could just tell I was looking around, trying to find where the sounds came from. My eyes got really big, and a smile came onto my face.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also smiled when she talked about her experiences as a Furman student, double-majoring in health sciences and psychology.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurman\u2019s done an awesome job,\u201d she said. \u201cThe professors here are just amazing. They\u2019ve all been very accommodating. I feel like I\u2019ve gotten a lot of help here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Epstein, who plays midfield on Furman\u2019s women\u2019s lacrosse team<\/a>, first visited the campus while being recruited as a high school athlete in Marietta, Georgia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to go down and look at the campus, and I loved it,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I also knew I wanted to be at a small school, because that\u2019s how I learn better. And I like sitting up front, so I can have easy communication with professors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Epstein has no experience of hearing \u201cnormally,\u201d she knows that the world sounds fundamentally different to her \u2013 and others with cochlear implants \u2013 than it does to a hearing person, she said. Unlike hearing aids, which receive and amplify sound waves for people who have some ability to hear, cochlear implants process sound waves into electrical impulses that travel directly into the cochlea, the part of the inner ear that transmits sound signals to the brain. The result is a recreation of sound, not an exact reproduction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like you guys hearing Siri,\u201d she said, referring to the synthesized speech of the iPhone\u2019s digital assistant. \u201cIt\u2019s very computerized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Epstein got her implants so young, she has had plenty of time to adjust to her new way of hearing. \u201cFor me, everything sounds normal, because I don\u2019t know anything different,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are nuances I pick up on, like different tones and pitches and modulations. For someone who were to get an implant later, it probably would sound different, but the brain actually adjusts to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visual cues are also useful for the hard of hearing, Epstein notes. \u201cFor me, lip reading is huge,\u201d she said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t completely rely on it, but when I\u2019m talking to someone, I will look at their lips.\u201d<\/p>\n

Epstein has used her last two summer breaks to share her practical experience with students with hearing loss at the Atlanta Speech School<\/a>. During these summer sessions, she would help 2- and 3-year olds meet challenges such as learning to use their hearing devices or adjusting to a classroom environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s awesome,\u201d she said. \u201cI love sharing my story, and I love working with little kids, too. I would show them my implants, and they would be like, \u2018Oh my God, I have them, too!\u2019 They would just get so excited just to see someone older wearing them.\u201d<\/p>\n

She plans to continue helping children with hearing loss after leaving Furman and getting a graduate degree in audiology, learning the technology that goes into devices like the cochlear implants she received years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be the person who turns on the patient for the first time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Born profoundly deaf, Alana Epstein ’23 has spent the last two summers preparing for a future as an audiologist by working with hearing-impaired children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":19752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,21,48,61,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","category-health-sciences","category-psychology","category-the-furman-advantage","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}