Ciwa Griffiths

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Hear Center logo in Pasadena, California

Ciwa Griffiths (born February 1, 1911 in Suva , Fiji ; † December 3, 2003 in Laguna Hills , Orange County ) was an American speech therapist and pioneer of auditory-verbal education and newborn hearing screening .

Life

She was the ninth of ten children. Her mother, a suffragette and pacifist, was born in Texas and her father in Fiji. Her father-in-law, George Littleton Griffiths (* 1844 Woolwich , England - 1908 Suva, Fiji) founded the Fiji Times in Levuka in 1869 , where the mother worked as a reporter and wrote the leading articles. The family lived in Suva, Sydney , Brisbane , Texas , California and went through the tough times of the two world wars and the Great Depression .

She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from San Francisco State College in 1932 . She couldn't find work in the middle of the Depression until Roosevelt founded the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

In 1937, she began teaching at a one-room school in Monterey County , where a deaf child encouraged her to turn to deaf education . Previously, she had earned her elementary school credentials at San Francisco State College.

1940-1941 she studied at the Clarke School for the Deaf in Massachusetts , made a Master of Science at the University of Massachusetts and was admitted to teaching deaf people at the Clarke School.

In 1954 she trained with Edith Whetnall at the Audiology Unit of the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in London in pediatric audiology . There she was able to observe for the first time how deaf children could learn to speak normally with hearing amplification combined with auditory-verbal upbringing if they started doing so in the first three years.

In 1954 she founded the Hear Foundation in Eagle Rock , Los Angeles , California. The foundation was later renamed the Hear Center and moved to her place of residence in Pasadena . In 1955 she earned a PhD in Education from the University of Southern California .

In the 1950s she began using full-time bilateral (two hearing aids) hearing amplification in deaf babies and young children. Babies who were one month old received hearing aids from her. Back then it was believed that hearing aids could not be given to children under the age of six. However, their observations and experiences showed that the residual hearing could be optimized in such a way that it enabled integration into the natural environment and regular school. Improved audiometry in the 1980s found that 97% of students in schools for the deaf had enough residual hearing to benefit from hearing aids and language education. She was also in favor of the intensive involvement of the parents, that they informed themselves, that they were committed and that they were consistent in their listening education.

In the 1970s she organized the world's first two international conferences on the application of hearing technology for deaf children. This resulted in a new organization, the Auditory-Verbal International (AVI) (today AG Bell Academy ).

plant

Griffith's life's work included hearing and learning to hear and speak. She was a pioneer in hearing testing, hearing training, and hearing education. She was one of the first people to realize that regardless of the degree of deafness, hearing aids were possible using a hearing aid, and the use of it on small children enabled them to grow up as part of the hearing world.

While the use of hearing aids in babies was revolutionary back then, newborn hearing screening has now become routine in some states. Back then, Griffiths had made every effort to get the state to pass a law that made hearing screening mandatory at birth. And she also made sure that the law was obeyed.

She did not focus on individual speech tones, but developed the speed, the rhythm and the language. She knew that if a deaf child could learn to hear with the help of hearing aids during the maturation period of speech development up to about 3.5 years, that they would then learn the language naturally (like the hearing). She found that early hearing screening, informed, engaged and assertive parents, the immediate use of improved hearing aids with powerful and adaptable amplification, allowed deaf or hard of hearing children to become part of the hearing world.

In the 1950s, while providing deaf infants with bilateral hearing aids, Griffiths discovered that the hearing aids could be removed after a few months because the infants had developed normal hearing. There were exceptions that still had to be provided with hearing aids because of neuronal defects ( rubella , meningitis , heredity). Their clinical study from 1969 to 1973 of 21 deaf infants showed that 67% of the infants who participated in the study and received hearing aids up to 8 months of age developed normal hearing, while none of the infants who did so after 8 months ago hearing aids were given, which was the case.

When Griffiths realized that the first few months of life were crucial for normal hearing development, she began using general hearing tests in newborns in 1964. She created the blueprint for California's first newborn hearing screening program in 1966 and did everything possible until the State of California passed legislation in 1984 (Legislative Mandates) and 1998 that made hearing screening mandatory at birth.

In a similar study carried out by otologist Arpad Götze at the ENT clinic of Janos Hospital in Budapest , Hungary 1978–1981 with 68 deaf infants, 51 (75%) were able to develop normal hearing. In 12 children the hearing did not improve, 10 of them did not wear the hearing aid until they were 10 months old, in the remaining 5 the results could not be followed up.

The use of Griffith's auditory approach, although ridiculed by the medical establishment at the time, became standard practice in American hospitals. Over the years, the Hear Center has received international recognition for its innovations and extensive testing and therapy programs.

As an inventor, she earned a United States patent for aids and techniques for testing newborns for hearing impairment. These test procedures were especially valuable for deaf infants under 8 months of age because they enabled hearing aids to be fitted before the critical period of 8 months, which enabled the majority of them to develop normally within months.

“ Deaf children remind me of butterflies: first encapsulated in a cocoon of deep silence that they did not create themselves, and then, when tones and cadences of love reach them, they unfold in all their individual colors, in soft or brilliant shades. "

- Ciwa Griffiths: Come Out, Little Butterfly

Honors

  • 1978 The World Who's Who of Women

Publications

  • Patterns , Crown Publications 1941
  • A study of the ability of deaf children in grouping, accentuation, and phrasing of movements of the individual speech organs versus syllables , 1941
  • The utilization of individual hearing aids in young deaf children . University of Southern California dissertations and theses, Los Angeles CA 1955
  • Til forever is past ; poems, Exposition Press 1967
  • Conquering childhood deafness; a new technique for overcoming hearing problems in infants and children; report on ten years of HEAR Foundation achievements . Exposition Press 1967 (held in 223 libraries worldwide)
  • Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Auditory techniques , Pasadena, California, sponsored by the HEAR Foundation in conjunction with the San Diego Speech and Hearing Center and Oralingua Staff. Verlag Thomas 1974, ISBN 0398030472
  • The Hear Foundation (film), 1975 A documentary about the Hear Foundation in Pasadena, California in which director Ciwa Griffiths and a deaf child tour the testing facilities and remedial classes for deaf toddlers and younger children.
  • The auditory approach: its rationale, technique, and results . Audiology & Hearing Education 1975 Effective
  • with J. Ebbin: Effectiveness of early detection and auditory stimulation on the speech and language of hearing impaired children . HEAR Center 1978
  • Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Auditory Techniques , 1979
  • HEAR: A four-letter word . Autobiography and History of Deaf Education. Wide Range Press 1991, ISBN 0963070908
  • One out of ten . Autobiography, Wide Range Press 1993, ISBN 0963070959
  • Why the dragon breathes fire . Wide Range Press 1995, ISBN 0963070916
  • The HEAR Center

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Her first name means nine in the Fiji language
  2. ↑ Ciwa Griffiths, J. Ebbin: Effectiveness of early detection and auditory stimulation on the speech and language of hearing impaired children . HEAR Center 1978
  3. ↑ Pedagogical specialist portal: Arpad Götze: True habilitation for hearing impaired infants, in: Hörgeschädigte Kinder 20, 1983
  4. ↑ Alison Gopnik from the University of California showed that seven-month-old Japanese and American babies were equally good at differentiating between “R” and “L”, something that Japanese babies couldn't do after ten months was possible. This study confirms the results of brain research that the brain, controlled by the ears, specializes in the mother tongue and therefore restricts foreign sounds that it cannot hear in the language environment after the age of 8–9 months. In the case of deaf children who receive no sensory input at all, the restriction is even more massive. Asians cannot pronounce an "R" ( Memento from September 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ United States Patent and Trademark Office: United States Patent 4007731 Griffiths et al. Means and techniques for establishing hearing deficiencies. February 15, 1977
  6. ↑ Ciwa Griffiths, HEAR A Four-Letter Word, 1991
  7. ↑ University of Southern California dissertations and theses, Los Angeles CA 1955 , accessed February 28, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Griffiths, Ciwa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Deaf Educator
DATE OF BIRTH February 1, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Suva , Fiji
DATE OF DEATH December 3, 2003
Place of death Laguna Hills , Orange County , United States