Skeleton Draft

1 Alan Tolcher

Working Bibliography Bull, Greg. "Sound Advice on Hearing Conservation Programs." Professional Safety. 51.9 (September 2006): 20-3. Wilsonselectplus. 27 November 2007 I am going to use this article to provide me with some insight on different things that can be done to protect hearing in the work place. DAMLO, SHERRI . "Quantum Sufficit: Just Enough." American Family Physician 7401 Dec. 2006 1823. Wilsonselectplus. 20 October 2007 http://newfirstsearch.oclc.org.huaryu.kl.oakland.edu> This article has a little selection about people that listen to their mp3 players loud and how you can hear them from three to four feet away. They also talk about the ringing that people experience in their ears and how to handle that sensation. Daniel, Eileen. "Noise and Hearing Loss: A Review." The Journal of School Health. 7May 2007 225-31.Wilsonselectplus. 20 October 2007 This article gives me a decibel chart that I can use to compare different types of noise. It also gives me a brief explanation of the science of the ear. Haller, Anne Kathryn, and Judy K. Montgomery. "Noise-Induced Hearing Loss in Children: What Educators Need to Know.." Teaching Exceptional Children 36. 4.March/April 2004 22-27.Wilsonselectplus. 23 October 2007 http://newfirstsearch.oclc.org.huaryu.kl.oakland.edu> This article is useful to me because it talks about solutions to how we can prevent hearing damage. Some of these are education or parenting suggestions. Lu, Jinggiao and Xiaoru Cheng. "Evaluation of individual susceptibility to noise-induced hearing loss in textile workers in China.." Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health 60,6Nov/Dec 2005 287-94. 28 Nov 2007 . I will use this to talk about hearing damage in a work place. McDonnough, Jacqueline T. and Juanita Jo. Matkins. "Using Sound Knowledge to Teach About Noise-Induced Hearing Loss.." Science Scope 30. 8.Arpil/May 2007 42-7. Wilsonselectplus. 24 October 2007 This article give stats about teens using ipods. They also give different scenerios of things that can cause hearing damage and then compares them to the damage an ipod can create.

2 Folmer, Robert L., and Susan E. Griest. "Hearing conservation education programs for children: a review." The Journal of School Health. 72.2 (Feb. 2002): 51-7.Wilsonselectplus. 27 November 2007 This article talks about children that suffer from noise induced hearing loss. It gives percentages and some interesting facts regarding kids with NIHL. Goodin, Dan. "Apple sued over hearing loss in iPod buyers." Associated Press 01 Feb. 2006 29 October 2007 http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/02/01/financial/f154219S22.DTL&tag=iLounge. This is a news article that talks about a class action lawsuit against apple for the damage iPods has caused to people’s ears. I am using this to show how much of a crisis this issue really is. “The Human Ear.” NDT Resource Center. http://www.ndted.org/EducationResources/HighSchool/Sound/humanear.htm. Dobie, Robert A.. Medical-Legal Evaluation of Hearing Loss. 2. Clifton Park, NY: Thomas Learning, 2001.

"Noise rules fall on deaf ears." The Safety & Health Practitioner 24.12 (Dec 2006): 60(1). Health Reference Center Academic. Gale. Oakland University. 15 Nov. 2007 . To show that there are laws in the business world to as what is legal and safe for workers, why shouldn’y there be for listeners? Zymanczyk, Peter. "Another quiet day at the office: measuring worker exposure to noise, and the damage it does, can be very difficult in some industries. Here, Peter Zymanczyk looks at how studies into hearing loss among firefighters have revealed the sources of the damage and how best to combat it." The Safety & Health Practitioner 24.11 (Nov 2006): 56(3). Health Reference Center Academic. Gale. Oakland University. 15 Nov. 2007 . This article discusses the damage that can be inflicted by noise in the work place. This particular example is of firefighters. They also have a few charts that show how much noise a person can tolerate. Links to pursue: http://kdka.com/video/[email protected] a news report on iPods and the damage they cause. Working Thesis: Working Thesis: IPods and other personal listening devices are destructive to hearing and people aren’t aware of how damaging it is. Antithesis: Many things are damaging to hearing such as a lawnmower, or leaf blower. Some way or another our hearing is going to be damaged Synthesis: Although there are many things that contribute to hearing loss, personal listening contribute to hearing loss.

3 About three years ago I was looking for something that I could get for Christmas. There were lots of thing that were possibilities for a great Christmas gift, but there was one thing that I had to have. This was the iPod mini. Almost all of my friends had one and anyone who was anyone to me seemed to have an iPod too. As you might have imagined, on Christmas morning I opened up a box that contained my very own iPod mini. Little did I know that someday this product that seemed like a gift straight from God may some day damage another gift from God. This is the gift of hearing. When a person is born they have little hairs in their ears called Corti. Each person has about sixteen thousand of these hair cells. A lot of these hairs are already damaged when you’re born (Daniel). What can increase the damage to these hairs are increases in high decibel levels. Here are some examples of different decibel levels for different kinds of activities. Zero decibel level is the softest level of volume. The sound of breathing is about ten decibels which is barely audible. A normal conversation is around fifty to sixty decibels. The decibel rate of city traffic is around eighty to ninety decibels, which is normally an annoyance, not yet damaging to the ear. An mp3 player or an iPod has the decibel reading of around 110 to 125. This decibel reading is damaging to the ear after fifteen minutes of play time. This decibel reading is also in the same range as a rock concert (Daniel). The average length of a song is around five minutes long. It would only take three songs for an ear to become damaged by an mp3 player. The human ear is composed of three different sections. There is the outer ear which is composed of the ear flap, and the ear canal. Sound waves will enter the ear through the ear canal. Then next part of the ear is the middle ear. There are three parts in the middle ear called the ear drum, the anvil and the stirrup. When the sound goes through the ear canal it

4 hits the ear drum which causes the ear drum to vibrate. The vibration from the ear drum is then passed to the hammer, which is one of three tiny bones that are in the ear. When the hammer receives the vibrations it too will vibrate causing the anvil, another small bone that touches the hammer, to vibrate. After the vibration occurs at the hammer, the last of the small bones called the stirrup. The stirrup picks up the vibrations and it touches a fluid filled sack which causes the vibrations to travel into the inner ear. The inner ear consists of the cochlea, the Eustachian Tube and the Auditory Nerve. The fluid filled sack, also known as the Cochlea houses thousands of special hair cells called Corti. These hairs are attached to nerve fibers that will transmit the vibrations to the brain. Once the brain receives the information from these hair cells, it will then be able to pick up different sounds. This is how a person hears(The Human Ear). What I am focusing on in this process is the little hair cells called Corti. The organ of Corti, as stated earlier, is housed in the cochlea. There are 16,000 to 20,000 of these little hairs. These cells need to be stiff in able to be able to vibrate. Over time though, they begin to lose their stiffness and lose their ability to vibrate. Once this happens to these cells the damage is permanent. Hearing is slowly lost due to the softening of these hair cells(Robert 139).

This is how the hearing damage occurs, but it is hard to detect the early stages of hearing loss. This is the problem with mp3 players and iPods. By the time a person can tell there is a significant problem with their hearing the damage has already been done and is irreversible (Daniel). So then what could be done to prevent something that is undetectable until it is too late? Things that can be done to help prevent hearing loss is having a mandatory constraint on the personal listening devices in the market today. The iPod that is currently on the

5 market has a decibel limit of 118. In France, the decibel level was forced to be dropped to 100 due to a law suit filed against Apple Inc. in France (Goodin). However, the limit in the United States is still 118, which is still harmful to the ear. Something else that could be done is to educate kids on the importance of taking care of their ears. Inform them on what can be harmful and what a safe level of volume is. What is strange about this issue is that it is not something that people haven’t heard already. Everyone knows what listening to loud music does to hearing. Most people have been informed about noise-induced hearing. The unfortunate thing about this crisis is that consequences aren’t immediate like other consequences in our world are. In forty years from now, we may see a generation with a large percentage of hearing impaired people. What will be a challenge is making people care about something that isn’t going to be noticeable for forty years.