Gene Therapy Allows an 11-Year-Old Boy to Hear

Re:Gene Therapy Allows an 11-Year-Old Boy to Hear by smeej on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @05:42PM (#39110993)

Is it the capacity to learn to speak a language, or the capacity to learn to understand spoken language that shuts? Or both? It's not quite clear from the way it's phrased here if maybe the inability to speak is only a consequence of the inability to understand, or if it's theoretically separable. Aren't there people who learn to speak, albeit with an accent, even though they have never been able to hear? So they might learn to read lips and speak, even though they wouldn't be able to understand a spoken language if they gained the ability to hear?

I ask because I'm interested to know which parts of brain research might eventually try to prop that door open. Granted, most people born with this genetic condition would probably just be treated shortly after birth and learn spoken language during the normal time frame, not go through some special other treatment just to prop that mental door open, but I'd still be interested to understand what's actually going on in the brain better.

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Re:Gene Therapy Allows an 11-Year-Old Boy to Hear by bb88 on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @06:25PM (#39111447)

There's a youtube video of Helen Keller who was both blind and deaf. She learned to speak in her adult life.

I don't have the link handy but it's entitled: "Helen Keller Speaks."

If you look at the video it seems she even appeared to pick up the accent of her teacher.

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Re:Gene Therapy Allows an 11-Year-Old Boy to Hear by jimbob45 on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @07:04PM (#39111778)

Was she not profoundly deaf?

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Re:Gene Therapy Allows an 11-Year-Old Boy to Hear by bb88 on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @07:46PM (#39112158)

Well she was deaf deaf and blind blind. Not partially deaf or blind. The vocalizations and mouth movements could have been learned by touch.

Tongue movements would have been harder to learn which explains why her vocalizations are hard to understand.

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Re:Gene Therapy Allows an 11-Year-Old Boy to Hear by makeitdouble on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @06:06PM (#39111260)

> Aren't there people who learn to speak, albeit with an accent, even though they have never been able to hear?

Yes, some people go through "speech therapy" and train to emit the right sounds while not hearing the output (but I think they rely on the inner vibrations ?).

Understandably that requires a ton of training on top of existing skills and not everyone ends up with something workable.

Part of the existing skills is the the ability to vocalize the sounds in the first place, and if a kid never intentionally vocalized for 11 years, I wonder if their vocal cords could ever develop to a point they can make the range of sounds needed.

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Re:Gene Therapy Allows an 11-Year-Old Boy to Hear by smeej on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @09:27PM (#39112884)

It does seem like the difficulty, then, must be with the comprehension of spoken language, then, not strictly the speaking of it.

I had wondered about this for awhile, how when you see adults have their cochlear implants turned on for the first time, sometimes they respond as though they do understand what people are saying to them. I had wondered how they could possibly know how to interpret the sounds as specific words, even if they knew the words, but this makes it seem like that's not what's happening. They're probably still reading lips to understand the words themselves.

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