 |
View Our Catalog | Coming to My Senses
From Publishers Weekly In this measured, useful work, Blatchford explains her careful decision to have the [cochlear] implant after being told by her audiologist that her condition was degenerating (‘I thought she was kidding,’ Blatchford writes in an accompanying poem, ‘but her face was serious’). Married since 1968, with two grown daughters and several grandchildren, Blatchford recognized how much she was missing and how quickly technology had advanced since she grew up. Having been mainstreamed in school, taught to ‘speechread’ rather than sign, and only fitted with her first hearing aid at age 12, Blatchford writes without a trace of self-pity about her vast loneliness as a child and how she became a master of ‘bluffing’: pretending she understood ‘was a lot less jarring and less tiring than having to ask people to repeat what they’d said.’ With her implant, sounds became tactile, with texture and colors she describes lyrically, and she presents amazing revelations regarding her newfound hearing of music, birds, and voices—especially her own voice. With an appendix featuring a technical explanation of the cochlear implant by audiologist Jeanne Coburn, this is a wonderfully inspiring work. Claire H. Blatchford, now retired, taught writing and art to deaf children at the Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech in Northampton, MA, and was also a writer for their department of Mainstream Services. Print Edition: ISBN 978-1-56368-615-3, 5½ x 8½ paperback, 168 pages, 1 figure, 21 photographs, appendix $19.95t E-Book: ISBN 978-1-56368-616-0 $19.95
To order by mail, print our Order Form or call:
TEL 1-800-621-2736; (773) 568-1550 8 am - 5 pm CST |
