The first ever deaf contestant has been announced for Love Island! Did you ears prick up you’ll want to watch this one.
A 23-year old model and dancer from London will compete in the next series of Britain’s favourite dating show, which is set sail on June 4th.
Tasha was born completely deaf and her parents found out when she was 12-months-old. She said she would say her friends and family think she’s “inspirational because of my hearing and my cochlear implant. I inspire quite a lot of people because I’m really open about it.”
Tasha is already pretty well known in the modelling world, she went viral in 2021 as a model for ASOS when shots of her wearing some earrings also showed her cochlear implant.
What is a Cochlear Implant?
A cochlear implant is a small electronic device that electrically stimulates the cochlear nerve (nerve for hearing). The implant has external and internal parts. The external part sits behind the ear. It picks up sounds with a microphone. It then processes the sound and transmits it to the internal part of the implant.
- A microphone, which picks up sound from the environment.
- A speech processor, which selects and arranges sounds picked up by the microphone.
- A transmitter and receiver/stimulator, which receive signals from the speech processor and convert them into electric impulses.
- An electrode array, which is a group of electrodes that collects the impulses from the stimulator and sends them to different regions of the auditory nerve.
How does a cochlear implant work?
A cochlear implant is very different from a hearing aid. Hearing aids amplify sounds so they may be detected by damaged ears. Cochlear implants bypass damaged portions of the ear and directly stimulate the auditory nerve. Signals generated by the implant are sent by way of the auditory nerve to the brain, which recognises the signals as sound. Hearing through a cochlear implant is different from normal hearing and takes time to learn or relearn. However, it allows many people to recognize warning signals, understand other sounds in the environment, and understand speech in person or over the telephone.