At first glance, Kristi Callihan is your average Communication Arts instructor.\u00a0 A second look and one might notice her hearing aids.<\/p>\n
Callihan’s parents first found out their daughter was deaf at age five.<\/p>\n
“You either go to a deaf school and you sign and you don’t speak,” says 37-year-old Callihan.\u00a0 “Or they streamline you and make you use hearing aids and they start making you read body language.\u00a0 I streamlined.”<\/p>\n
Callihan wears two hearing aides, but she also reads lips and non-verbals to communicate with others.\u00a0 She teaches Interpersonal Communication and Public Speaking at Sinclair Community College.<\/p>\n
“Why would they hire some one who is deaf to do public speaking?” asks Callihan.\u00a0 “In reality, I’m the best instructer because I can read all of the body language.”<\/p>\n
Callihan began teaching at Sinclair in the fall and has previously taught at eight institutions.\u00a0 Callihan said she had a ball at Sinclair during her first quarter.<\/p>\n
Future implant for Callihan<\/strong><\/p>\n According to www.fda.gov, a cochlear implant is “an implanted electronic hearing device, designed to produce useful hearing sensations to a person with severe to profound nerve deafness by electronically stimulating nerves inside the inner ear.”<\/p>\n Callihan has done her research on the procedure and is now attempting to find the right surgeon to place the implant.<\/p>\n “It’s actually brain surgery to get that electode into that shell,” says Callihan.\u00a0 “I’m hoping for that (implant) in the spring.”<\/p>\n Callihan has been told that when hearing someone speak that they will sound similar to Daffy Duck.<\/p>\n “It’s amazingly cool because I’ll be able to plug directly into my iPod, my computer,” says Callihan. “I’ll be kind of like the Bionic Woman.”<\/p>\n Callihan has never taught another deaf student, but has taught interpreters before.<\/p>\n “I don’t do any of that (sign language),” says Callihan.\u00a0 “It’s a whole different world.\u00a0 They don’t consider me a part of their world because I embrace technology.”<\/p>\n Life outside of the classroom<\/strong><\/p>\n Callihan was given a lively presence to make up for her loss of hearing.\u00a0 Her passion for teaching is evident when in conversation.\u00a0 Callihan lives a normal life off of campus.\u00a0 She is married, has two children and loves basketball.<\/p>\n “Boy is older (eight) and the girl is younger (five),” says Callihan.\u00a0 “And they hear beautifully.”<\/p>\n Callihan sees herself sticking around Sinclair for quite awhile.<\/p>\n “In the eight institutions that I have taught for, [Sinclair] is the most supportive,” says Callihan.\u00a0 “I feel very blessed to here.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At first glance, Kristi Callihan is your average Communication Arts instructor.\u00a0 A second look and one might notice her hearing aids. Callihan’s parents first found out their daughter was deaf at age five. “You either go to a deaf school and you sign and you don’t speak,” says 37-year-old Callihan.\u00a0 “Or they streamline you and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[65,66,1272,15],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-communications","tag-instructors","tag-joseph-stueve","tag-teaching"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-4y","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15447,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions\/15447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}