Monday, September 22, 2008

Amanda's First Musical Keyboarding Experience-Captioned Video Clip

Okay everyone!  This is it!  A profoundly deaf 14 year old who just 38 days ago (prior to her cochlear implant activation) couldn't hear ANYTHING, and never had, is calling some of the sounds coming from her new electronic keyboard, "weird."

6 comments:

Charlotte said...

Awesome!!!, She should play jingle bells at xmas! Well done Amanda...

I had the volume on my lap top turned up, my dog Boris was looking at the speaker listening attentively.

C x

Anonymous said...

Wow, it looks like Amanda's making great progress in terms of listening with her CI. That's good news!

I've been browsing through CI blogs and came across yours, since I'm profoundly deaf and have been a Nucleus CI user for almost 16 years. I'm curious as to why you chose the Advanced Bionics CI brand over the other two brands for Amanda. :)

leah said...

Wow- she's hearing a lot for someone who's only been hearing for so short a time! The keyboard is pretty cool- the lighted up keys are neat!

Jennifer Bruno Conde said...

Hi Charlotte, Yeah, I think Jingle Bells just might be more appropriate for December! Glad Amanda's piano playing gave Boris some entertainment!

Jennifer, Glad you found my blog. :-) Thanks for your support for Amanda. To answer your question, regarding why we went with Advanced Bionics over the other two manufacturers, Amanda had wanted a CI for almost 4 years before she was finally implanted.

We were convinced she would receive a CI from Cochlear Corporation. It was the one we were the most familiar with, had received literature from and knew the most people who had be implanted with.

When we were fighting insurance we got support from Let Them Hear Foundation who was connected with Advanced Bionics and thus began to research AB.

We requested information from AB and were very impressed with their product. We got involved with their forum and found a tremendous source of support. Our doctor also recommended AB for Amanda as being easy to program and use.

Since then we have been in touch with many AB users who had done extensive research comparing all the companies and deciding on AB.

We personally know successful Cochlear users as well but haven't met any Med-El users yet.

Hi Leah, Amazing, huh?! We learned about the lighted keyboard when we saw Katie-Louise (Katie-Louise's Cochlear Implant Blog) playing Happy Birthday on her keyboard. :-)

Katie-Louise's blog said...

Haha Nice one, That Keyboard is exacatly the same isn't it? What make is it?

woohooo Amanda can play the keyboard. I've learnt how to play Jingle bells even thought it isn't christmas yet! I love the keyboard. Maybe after xmas I might join a keyboard lesson to see how it goes, but not just yet though. I've still got alot to learn.

:-P Amanda and I should make a band lol. If we did i bet alot of you hearing peeps would say "argh! What's that horrible noise" lol.


I've actually tried playing a trumpet but it took me a while to make a sound as I couldn't blow into it properly.

anyway, Keep it up Amanda! Us Bionic girls are the BEST!

Jennifer Bruno Conde said...

Hi Katie-Louise,

We had never even seen a lighted keyboard until your video and saw you playing. We went looking for one and found the Casio LK-100.

Great idea! You and Amanda and all the other bionic babes could start a band. Now wouldn't THAT be something?! You could keep up with the trumpet until it actually produces sound. Smile.

Jennifer :-)