PSU Magazine Fall 1993

l I I Keith Larson, then-chairman of PSU' department of special education. Larson invited him to go down to Costa Rica to evaluate the ex isting programs for the deaf as a project fo r the Oregon-Costa Rica Partner , part of a national nonprofit organization that sets up grass-roots partnerships between states in the U.S. and countrie or region in Latin America or the Caribbean. What Maurer found on his first visit to the country in 1972 was no ise-and lots of it: buses without mufflers, motor– cycles, a constant hum of factories and sawmills, deliv ry trucks and loud mu ic. This urban and industrial noise-along with a tropical climate that tends to cause fungus-related ear problems in children-seemed to exp lain the country's higher-than-average hearing losses. But it also made testing for hearing problems next to imposs ible, particular– ly since the country had no acoustic chambers, a fancy name fo r a thick– walled room that blocks out even the loudest outside noise. (Portland has more than two dozen acoustic cham– bers, most in hospitals and audiology practices. ) Maurer returned to the U. ., and on subsequent visits to Costa Rica made recommendations to the Mini try of Health for a noise- reduction and hear– ing-con ervation program (similar to the provisions of OSHA, the U.S. Occupational Hea lth and Safety Act). He encouraged medica l school faculty to tart a hea ring- lo s-detection pro– gram for children. And he organized workshops for teachers of the deaf and vocational rehab ilitation instructors. Some year later, in 1978, he got a phone call from Pedro Leon, a Co ta Rican doctor who had studied microbiology at University of O regon . Leon was at Portland Internationa l air– port for a stopover, and a ked Maurer if he might chat with him about trange hearing- loss patterns he wa finding in very young children. Maurer drove out to meet Leon and tudied hi test results: dozens of three- and fo ur– year-olds, all members of the Monge family, all of whom showed low-p itch hearing losses. Maurer thought it might simpl y be that urban and industrial noi e was masking the children's ab ility to hear low pitches during testing. So he told Leon he would return to Costa Rica, this time with an acoustic chamber. A year after his meeting with Leon, Maurer ran into an old fri end, Al Knox, then Chief of Audiology and Speech Pathology at the Veterans Ad– ministration Hospital in Kansas C ity. Knox had an acoustic chamber that could no longer be used at the V.A. Hosp ital, and he offered to donate it to a deaf school in the Costa Rican town of Guadalupe, just outside San Jose. It turned out that lining up the chamber, plus $30,000-$40,000 worth of hearing-testing equipment, was the easy part. Getting it down to Costa Rica, particularly during a time when relations between the U.S. and Central America were trained, was another matter. Month of whee ling and dealing fo llowed, including a plea to first lady Ro alyn Ca rter, with no resu lts. Finall y, Knox took their request to the 442nd T act ica l Air Wing of the Air Force Reserve-along with a good– will offering of a case of Coors beer. That was all it took, says Maurer, chuckling. "Al and I work well together." With the chamber insta lled in Guadalupe, Maurer and Pedro Leon were able to test more than 100 people in 1981, half the Monge family. The re ults pointed to a new form of hered itary deafness Photos left to right: James Maurer checks a hearing aid at the Guadelupe School for the Deaf; Al Knox, Pedro Leon, and Francis McNeal, U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica, examine the school's lab; Maurer and Walt Stemmler work on the newest testing chamber in San Jose; chamber plaque commemorates Maurer and PSU; Costa Rican students are learning to work at the clinic. that leaves 50 percent of the children in the family deaf by age 13 . This discovery of an entirely new syndrome wa monumental, says Maurer, "like finding a needl e in a haystack," he says. And while the condition is untreat– ab le, Maurer says the family members have adjusted extremely well, and even deve loped their own fo rm of sign language. "There's a whole lot of love down the re among that group of FALL 1993 15