March 2001: Vol. 80, No. 2March 2001: Vol. 80, No. 2Learning to hear again
After 37 years of silence, a member of UGA's disability services staff hears the music he loves again.
by Laura Wexler
As a young boy, John Weber was plagued by nightmares until he learned to nip them in the bud. When he felt a nightmare coming on, he'd call out in the dark, "Mom! Music!" Downstairs, his mother would turn on the radio. Calmed by the sweet sounds of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Jerome Kern, Weber would fall fast asleep.
But when he was 13, Weber contracted meningitis, and his mother faced a difficult choice: allow doctors to give her son streptomycin, which would cause irrevocable damage to the nerve fibers in his ears, or risk his death. She chose the streptomycin, and over the nine months he lay in a hospital bed Weber gradually lost his hearing until, one day, he could hear nothing at all. Because he suffered nerve deafness, hearing aids couldn't help.
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 Weber publishes materials for UGA's Institute on Human Development and Disability, and he's indebted to the music therapy department, which helped him learn how to hear again with a cochlear implant. |
Weber can hear thanks to tiny electrodes implanted in his ear that stimulate nerve fibers and send sound information to the brain
Then, in 1989, Weber received a cochlear implant. A tiny microphone attached to his ear picks up sounds, which are then sent along a wire to a speech processor—a unit the size of an audio cassette player—that Weber straps to his belt. The processor converts the sounds into electrical code and sends the code to a receiver implanted under the skin on Weber's head. That receiver transmits the code to tiny electrodes implanted in his inner ear that stimulate his nerve fibers. The nerve fibers, in turn, send sound information to Weber's brain, allowing him—through the magic of medical technology—to hear again.
Several years after receiving the cochlear implant, Weber took a job as a dissemination coordinator for UGA's Institute on Human Development and Disability (IHDD). IHDD is part of a federal program mandated by the Developmental Disabilities Act, and its role is to bring together people with disabilities, families, service providers, educators, and community representatives. Weber serves as the informational link between the IHDD and the public. He writes, edits, takes photographs, and designs 17 publications, including resource guides, manuals, videos, and newsletters. One of his most recent creations is Children of Choice, a book of stories and photographs about families who have adopted children with special needs. Last year, Weber also directed a workshop called "Signs and Sounds" that brought together leaders of every hearing-loss consumer group in Georgia with the state agencies that serve people with hearing loss.
"I am a person with a disability, and our program serves people with disabilities," says Weber. "Mainly I'm a communicator. I try to get mainstream America to see that people with disabilities can do a lot."
Weber is living proof of that. Since coming to UGA, he's worked with the students in UGA's music therapy department to recover and improve his hearing. Which isn't to say that Weber hears exactly the same as he did when he was a kid. But a man who was deaf for more than three decades is now playing—and re-enjoying—his favorite songs on the piano.
"I didn't listen to any music until I came to UGA," says Weber. "Music was so important to me, but I simply backed away from it."
Weber resisted because the music he heard with the benefit of his cochlear implant didn't match his memory of what he'd heard as a boy. Which makes sense because the actual hearing of sounds—which the cochlear implant makes possible—is only part of listening; the other part is done by the brain, which matches each sound with memories of sound, and thereby identifies it.
"John had to learn how to hear again," says Roy Grant, director of UGA's music therapy department, who invited Weber to serve as a sort of guinea pig for his students.
'I'm a person with a disability, and our program serves people with disabilities. Mainly I'm a communicator. I try to get mainstream America to see that people with disabilities can do a lot.'—John Weber
In his early music therapy sessions, Weber couldn't discriminate between different songs, much less different pitches or octaves. But after a year of work, he could distinguish between notes and tones. Then he returned to the piano.
"Music therapy is bringing the songs back to the surface," says Weber. Last year, he performed "Sentimental Journey," one of his longtime favorites, in a concert presented by UGA's music therapy department. Looking around at the other performers, Weber witnessed the power of music therapy for all ranges of disabled people.
"I saw a correlation between what music did for them and what music did for me," says Weber, who is developing a protocol to help people with cochlear implants learn to enjoy music again. "I always wanted to be Gordon McRae in 'Carousel,'" he says. "But I want to feel the music now, and I can do that."
Language dorm is a non-stop foreign language classroom
Students who live in Mary Lyndon Hall don't have to wait to get to class to speak French and Spanish. They can do it in their PJs.
by Suzanne Scoggins
It's after 11 p.m. and Josh McElroy and his friends are in their pajamas, playing a game of Scrabble in the lounge of Mary Lyndon Hall. It seems like just another Tuesday night at any residence hall on campus, but there is something different about this game and these students.
McElroy and his friends have been spelling out words for more than an hour—and all the words they've come up with are in French. They've also been speaking French the entire time, laughing at each other when someone tries to cheat by making up words.
 The language dorm is the first in a series of programs designed to integrate students' social and academic lives. Next up: live-in faculty. |
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"When I first heard about the program, I knew I wanted to take part," says McElroy, a sophomore from Douglasville who is majoring in French. "It's tailor-made for people whose interests in foreign language extend beyond the classroom and into the culture."
Mary Lyndon has language communities in both French and Spanish. Each community houses 15 to 18 students who share a serious interest in either French or Spanish. The students speak their second language together on a daily basis in regular conversations and at special events such as language hours, movie nights, and dinners hosted by the community. To further enhance the learning experience, each community benefits from a graduate resident coordinator who lives in the community with the students.
"It's the best dorm experience I've ever had," says Mary Thomas, a junior in international business from Fairburn and a member of the Spanish community. She moved back on campus to participate in the program after spending her sophomore year in an apartment.
Immersion in a foreign language extends to dinner conversation and Scrabble
Michael Lindsey, graduate resident coordinator for the French community, is excited about the program and students' reactions. "The language community erases the boundaries between the academic world and real life," says Lindsey, "by providing a fun learning environment for students."
A computer lab with Internet connectivity and the latest language software has been developed for the exclusive use of the language communities. Students also have access to a newly renovated kitchen and conference room, where they eat dinners and host get-togethers. In addition, they attend weekly language hours hosted by their resident coordinators, where they discuss a current event or topic—but never in English.
The language communities are also geared toward further learning and application. "We hope the students will continue to use their language skills after they graduate," says faculty coordinator Diana Ranson, a professor of Romance languages.
The most frequently asked question about the program is whether the students actually speak French and Spanish all the time.
"We don't police their rooms or anything like that," says Eric Williams, Spanish graduate resident coordinator. "But I think the students speak in their second language most of the time because they want to. That's why they came here instead of another dorm."
Language communities are just the first step in integrating students' social and academic lives.
"Next fall, we'll have live-in faculty in Rutherford Hall, which will enhance student-professor interaction," says Dyer. "We're also converting part of a Russell Hall floor into classrooms, computer labs, and study areas. A third innovation for fall 2001 is the new Afternoon College, which will target courses essential to freshman and sophomore success that are normally offered in large-classroom settings in the mornings.
"By putting underclassmen in smaller-classroom settings in the mid- to late afternoons," says Dyer, "their performance in these essential classes should improve dramatically."
Taking aim at Ovarian cancer
UGA geneticist John McDonald is joining forces with a noted Atlanta gynecologist to create the Ovarian Cancer Institute.
by Phil Williams
Each year, some 27,000 women die from ovarian cancer. The disease is difficult to treat, and five-year survival rates have changed little in the past quarter-century. The new Ovarian Cancer Institute hopes to change that, and an internationally known genetics professor at UGA is an important part of the effort.
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 McDonald hopes to find a "marker" that will help diagnose ovarian cancer in the same way that Pap smears help diagnose cervical cancer. |
A major goal of the new lab is the development of a "marker" that will potentially provide an early diagnosis of ovarian cancer in the way that the Pap smear leads to early diagnosis of cervical cancer. The potential payoff for women could be substantial. McDonald's partner in this effort is noted Atlanta gynecologist Benedict Benigno, whose Southeastern Gynecologic Oncology Group is one of the largest ovarian cancer surgery groups in the country.
"This represents a unique collaboration between a major research university and a private medical institute," says McDonald, an internationally recognized expert on retroviruses, stealthy disease-causing agents that are responsible for a number of illnesses. "We believe this collaboration has the potential to lead to major discoveries in the diagnosis and treatment of ovarian cancer."
McDonald's partnership with Benigno will provide precious tissue samples for lab analysis.
"We have such a large number of patients that we will be operating on that it will give us a considerable amount of data that can be synthesized and made meaningful in a short period of time," says Benigno. "The Institute will be involved in training physicians in the diagnosis and management of patients with cancer of the ovary."
Benigno also intends to train health-care professionals who will talk to women about the early warning signs of the disease, which include abdominal swelling or cramping. But family physicians often diagnose the illness as something less severe.
Problem: 27,000 women die every year from ovarian cancer. Task: develop reliable early-warning test.
"Because there are no effective screening tests," says Benigno, "patients invariably reach us when the tumor has metastasized through the abdominal cavity—presenting extraordinary challenges. We want to empower women to take charge of their health care when these symptoms are first seen."
McDonald and Benigno believe the Ovarian Cancer Institute will soon make Georgia a national and international referral center for the disease as research and therapy are refined. Agreements with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies may be forthcoming.
The recent completion of the Human Genome Project provides information on all the genes in the human body. With currently available technology, McDonald says his lab team can screen the expression of all human genes in a single experiment. As recently as five years ago, teams could examine only a single gene at a time—greatly complicating the tasks at hand.
"The power of these techniques is tremendous," he says. "To focus them on a specific disease like ovarian cancer has great potential."
The "marker" McDonald and Benigno talk about could be a blood test that can detect early signs of ovarian cancer. Such a test could dramatically raise the five-year survival rate. Early treatment may also allow women to retain their fertility—something nearly impossible when the disease is diagnosed in later stages.
Central to the effort is a lab device called a microarray analyzer, now housed at UGA, that will allow the team to screen tissues from cancer patients to look for genetic components to the disease. This machine will reveal information on 50,000-80,000 genes in the tumor compared to healthy tissue, making the identification of target genes possible. Within a year, the device will be moved to St. Joseph's Hospital in Atlanta where the routine screening of tissues will continue. The more basic research aspects of the project will continue on the UGA campus, specifically aimed toward the development of the blood test and potential therapies.