Friday was the last day for Stephyn's blindness. For the most part I am ready to move on. The longer he was deaf, them more complex the communication became. Earlier in the week, we had been trying to determine the best way to talk to each other. Later in the week we had figured out most everything vocabulary-wise that was necessary. This led to some confidence on both our parts in our communication skills. Unfortunately, neither of us could express what we were trying to say very well. Frustration resulted, and we had to cope by signing very slowly and being particularly patient. When all else failed, we simply resorted to texting. So, was nice to be able to simply speak to Stephyn.

The data is less compelling this week as compared with last week. We saw less severe differences in taste and smell from day to day, and there didn't seem to be any real visual improvement. The data hasn't been fully analyzed, so I can't make any specific claims.

Ready to move on

Thursday:

I gotta admit that I am getting a bit burnt out. It's not that the work is hard or even terribly time consuming when considering the work load of a typical semester. It's more that I have to work harder and harder to communicate with Stephyn each day. We both are having a hard time expressing complicated notions quickly. On numerous occasions, either he or I have simply decided to remain quiet rather than trying to spend 5 minutes to relay one idea.

In addition to that, I have been dealing with some family problems that have made me less interested in working. Of course, I have to do what I need to do in order to complete my project, so I shall soldier on, but it certainly has made it more difficult. In any case, we are about finished with the scheduled deprivation periods, and that is relieving.

I will close by saying that I have certainly enjoyed learning these various methods of communicating with Stephyn throughout his deafness, but I will be glad when I can simply ask him a question verbally.

Business as Usual

Wednesday:

There hasn't been much going on this week as far as interesting events. The project has again found it's routine, which makes it a little monotonous. Of course, all lab work gets to be that way after a while. I guess the most interesting thing to report is the trend our data seems to be taking.

Last week, we saw a particular trend of increasing taste and smell perception. I found this trend to be very promising. Our hypothesis is that we do see some sort of physiological response, and we are seeing something like that. The real question then becomes why we are seeing these responses.

I think that this uptrend in olfactory and taste perception is primarily due to a higher potential for concentration. Since the brain doesn't need to focus on processing the information from an entire sensory region, more energy can be spent on processing information in the other cortices. Now, I'm not even sure that this little theory is possible, but if so, then it could explain our results. We will have to see how the deaf studies turn out.

I read newspapers, not lips...

Communication is a hard thing when you are dealing with someone who can't speak. Tuesday, we went over to the School for the Deaf and Blind again to consult with someone who is far more experienced than we are in navigating the twisting roads of sensory deprivation. Once again, our meeting proved to be worth every minute of our time spent there.

When we first arrived, we sat down in an office with our gracious contact, Kristin Milner. We first discussed the safety aspects of deafness: what we should look out for, what Stephyn could expect when walking around, etc. Of course our conversation was slow and a bit tedious as neither Stephyn or I can sign. We had earlier devised a small dry erase board from a sheet protector and a white sheet of paper, so we used that as needed. From there we went on a short tour of the school to have a look at how deaf students go about learning. The hardest thing to deal with, apparently, is discipline. Deaf children have a hard time communicating their thoughts and wishes. Many can't speak because they have never heard how to form the sounds. Those that can speak have a bit easier of a time. All children who go to the school learn sign, however, so that helps a bit. Unfortunately, not all the parents of deaf children know how to sign.

Soapbox: That is really crap if you have a deaf child and you don't take the time to learn sign. I wouldn't imagine the classes to be expensive, or even to cost anything. It is part of a parent's responsibility to communicated effectively with his/her child, and not doing so is entirely unacceptable.

Sorry about that, but when I heard that there were parents of deaf children that didn't know how to sign I almost asked for their numbers...

In any case, the child who can't communicate can't express their needs and wants. Because they have not learned an alternative, they resort to the behavior they learned as babies: crying. The difference is that they have more mobility and control over their body so they use tantrums as opposed to simple crying. Throwing things, pounding the ground, hitting, and various other things are common. Of course our society expects that children in school ought to behave better, so we have methods of disciplining them. The school employs what seem to be very patient methods of calming the child down and discovering the problem. I didn't see any episodes on our short tour, but I can imagine that the teachers are quite patient.

After our visit, we really spent the rest of the day learning how to communicate with each other. Since we don't really know sign language--we asked Ms. Milner how to do a few words like Science, Building, Go, Sign, I do/don't know, etc.--we had to invent several words as we needed them in conversation. It is still sign language, but it is not codified or recorded anywhere but our brains. It's a bit like having a secret language like I used to do when I was little. I have to admit: I get the same rush out of signing with my invented language as I did in years past.

The only thing I need to do now is figure out how to quickly sign "I know you are but what am I?"

Huh?

Today we start our deafness study. As today is a holiday, we will be unable to start the week with a School for the Deaf and Blind visit, but we have a meeting with them scheduled tomorrow morning. Judging by our last experience, the meeting should prove to be infinitely helpful in preparing us for our task.

So, right after we ran a short eye test to ensure a return to baseline visual acuity, we put in his earplugs and put on his sound canceling ear muffs. Overall, it lowers each auditory input by about 65 decibels. A loud rock concert ranges from 120-130 decibels. Soft elevator music ranges around 60-80 decibels. A rock concert would be about as loud as elevator music. Normal conversation is inaudible. So he is not completely deaf, but he is legally deaf and certainly hearing impaired. It's not perfect, but it will certainly work for our purposes.

I'm thinking that this week will certainly be an interesting one. Last week we got what looks like some good results that support our hypothesis, so here's to hoping that this week provides similar results.

I can see the Light...and it BURNS!!!

Ok, so we didn't really just flip on the switch to the florescent lights after we took the blindfold off. That wouldn't have even been funny. Of course I am talking about last Friday when Stephyn came out of his blindness.

Thursday night we experienced a fire alarm in our residence hall which was jarring for me and apparently terrifying for Stephyn. As far as I can imagine, losing sight is stressful. Being jarred violently awake into a disorienting situation of confusion and excruciatingly loud noise is a bit more intense than "stressful." Fortunately, the dorm didn't actually burn down, so no real worries. That morning, however, Stephyn told me he simply wanted to sleep in, so I figured he needed the peace for a bit. Around lunchtime, I got him up and going and we conducted our final battery of tests for the week. By three we were done, and we went back to the room. We took off the blindfold slowly into a pretty dark room. The only light was what could filter through closed blinds. Over the next half hour, we incresed the intensity of light in the room with soft incandescent bulbs. By 3:45 or so, he was seeing fine and I could see his shoulders relax a bit and the stress lines on his face start to fade away.

I am glad that part of the experiment is over. It was particularly stressful for me the last week as I am sure you could tell by my last few posts. It will be nice next week because he will be independently mobile, meaning that I won't have to be constantly watching his every step. I'm thinking we might have to get doughnuts to celebrate. Mmmmm...doughnuts.

Glitz and Glam

Thursday was pretty cool for one very simple reason: we are going to get a bit of local media coverage for our project. Thanks to a very helpful fraternity friend, we got in contact with the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. They sent out a staff report and photographer to talk to us about what we were doing. The interview went pretty well from my standpoint. We talked about everything from the project's inception, how we went about getting approval for the project, what we were doing scientifically, and what we expected as results.

It was rather fun for me because I got to show both of the folks from the paper exactly what we do each day. Some of the tests are pretty interesting in their method, and I think that they were a bit surprised at the scope of the experimentation. Of course I haven't spent time here describing what Stephyn and I do each day in the lab. Perhaps that will have to be put on priority for later.

In any case, the folks from SHJ said that the story will run a week from next Tuesday. Look for it in the paper or on goupstate.com.