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October 4, 2006 - WUIS to air live program on the future of deaf education and culture

SPRINGFIELD – Public radio 91.9 WUIS (Springfield) - 89.3 WIPA (Pittsfield) will carry a special two-hour broadcast of NPR’s Talk of the Nation, focusing on the future of deaf education and culture, on Thursday, October 12. Area residents can join the conversation online at 1 p.m. CDT. Hearing-impaired individuals will have the opportunity to follow and participate in the discussion in real-time through live captioning at www.NPR.org.

In the first hour, I. King Jordan, outgoing president of Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, the world’s only university dedicated to deaf and hard-of-hearing students, will discuss his legacy and the controversy over the appointment of his successor.

In the second hour, host Neal Conan will examine the shifting debate over cochlear implants, electronic devices that can give a deaf person a useful representation of sounds in the environment and help him or her to understand speech. Hearing through a cochlear implant is different from normal hearing.

Once an issue that divided the deaf community, the use of cochlear implants is now more widely accepted, yet very difficult questions remain about how people with these implants can successfully live in two worlds – the hearing and the deaf – and about how children with implants should be educated.

Guests during this hour will include documentary filmmaker Josh Aronson, whose film “Sound and Fury” tells the story of two brothers split apart by their different approaches to implants for their children. Aronson recently completed a follow-up film, “Sound and Fury: Six Years Later,” and will join the discussion with Peter and Heather Artinian, who were featured in both films.

WUIS-WIPA is listener-supported public radio for central and west central Illinois, now in its 31st year of broadcasting from the campus of the University of Illinois at Springfield. WUIS’ mission is to satisfy a curious, societally engaged audience through programming and community outreach. For WUIS’ complete program schedule, events, and other information, go to www.wuis.org.