The American Cochlear Implant Alliance (ACI Alliance) announced that it will award two lifetime achievement awards at its upcoming virtual conference CI2021: Cochlear Implants in Children and Adults. The award is given annually to an individual with an exemplary body of work in service to advancing cochlear implants. It will be given at the CI 2021 Virtual Conference at the Opening Session on April 29, 2021 at 9:45 AM ET.
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The award for Ann Geers, PhD, was announced in 2020 but was not awarded due to the conference cancellation. She will be receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award for Advancing Pediatric Cochlear Implantation. The award recognizes Dr Geers’ work in advancing cochlear implant care and follow-up for deaf children over her more than 40-year career in research on language development in children with hearing loss. Dr Geers’ tenacity in demonstrating how early intervention focused on listening and spoken language development can benefit children with all levels of hearing loss has benefited children around the world.
Dr Geers wrote an article that appeared in the May 2003 edition of Hearing Review summarizing research conducted at the Central Institute for the Deaf. The study concluded that a higher level of expectation was appropriate for children with cochlear implants then were previously thought of as realistic for profoundly deaf children who wore hearing aids, in conjunction with an emphasis on auditory and spoken language skills.
Richard T. Miyamoto, MD is the 2021 recipient of ACI Alliance’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr Miyamoto spent his entire career at the Indiana University School of Medicine, rising to chief of otology and neurotology and chairman of the department of otolaryngology, positions he held until his retirement in 2014. Dr Miyamoto was “a trailblazer in supporting a team approach to cochlear implantation” and helping craft what is now the accepted practice of a CI multidisciplinary team. With what the ACI Alliance describes as “his kind and encouraging style of mentoring,” he trained and inspired a whole generation of cochlear implant professionals, including surgeons, researchers, speech-language pathologists, audiologists, educators, and psychologists.
ACI Alliance is a not-for-profit membership organization created with the purpose of eliminating barriers to cochlear implantation by sponsoring research, driving heightened awareness, and advocating for improved access to cochlear implants for patients of all ages across the US.
For more on the Lifetime Achievement Award visit: www.acialliance.org/page/LifetimeAchievementAward. For more information on the CI2021 conference visit: www.CI2021.org.
Source: ACI Alliance
Images: ACI Alliance
