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implant technology have increased the amount
and quality of what individuals who are deaf and
hard of hearing are able to hear (Dowell, Blamey,
and Clark, 1995). Given these advances, we
sought to determine if a student who is deaf-blind
with a cochlear implant could learn to use a mobility device which relied on sound cues like the K
-Sonar.
For this foray into teaching a student who is deafblind with a cochlear implant to use the K-Sonar,
we selected an 18-year-old, male student who
only had light perception and used a cochlear implant in one ear and a hearing aid in the other.
Our first step in this process was to make sure
the student was a viable candidate for learning to
use the K-Sonar device. Most importantly, we
wanted to know if the student could hear the
sounds emitted by the K-Sonar. We gave the student three tests to determine if he could hear the
sounds emitted by the device. For the first test,
the student told us when he heard the device emit
any sound at all. For the second test, we had him
identify when the frequency modulations, which
indicate distance setting, changed. For the third
test, we had him indicate changes in the pitch of
the sound emitted by the K-Sonar. The student
passed all three tests with 100% accuracy. With
the aid of his cochlear implant, he was able to accurately hear and perceive the K-Sonar. This
alone was big news!
Previously, the only viable population for this device was believed to be individuals with typical
hearing. Furthermore, the student may have been
more accurate at describing the qualities of the
