Cochlear Argument Paper

Cochlear implants are becoming more and more popular now. Even babies as young as 12 months are receiving a cochlear implant. For hearing parents it’s more convenient to have their child get a cochlear implant rather then to learn sign language. Hearing parents usually just look for the simple way out because they don’t want to have a child who is “different.�

(n.d.). Part one: the deaf community and cochlear implants my child can have more choices: reflections of deaf mothers on cochlear implants for their children. Cochlear Implants: Evolving Perspectives. Retrieved February 09, 2018, from http://gupress.gallaudet.edu/excerpts/CIEP.html

Some deaf people also believe that their condition is both natural and cultural and in no sense medical. Therefore, implants only constitute acts of genocide, endangering the continuation of the Deaf community (Edwards). Deaf people view those who agree to the surgery and get the implants as artificial deaf persons, as opposed to those who choose to be original deaf persons (893). Even though hearing persons try to cure those who are hard of hearing, most deaf individuals consider that they do not need their help, as they do not have any disability, and simply have a different language and culture than the rest of their community.

In today’s society there is an ongoing debate of weather children who are deaf should receive cochlear implants. A cochlear implant is a device that takes sound wave and changes the waves into electrical activity for the brain to interpret. Wire called electrodes are surgically implanted into the cochlear nerve which receives a signal from the microphone attached to the transmitter and speech processor. The microphone captures the sound from the environment and the speech processor filters the noise versus speech. Then the transmitter sends an electrical signal through the electrodes to stimulate the cochlear nerve. Every person has a different thought depending on their experiences in their life whether deaf children should receive cochlear

Cochlear Implants are an object that is very controversial in the deaf community. “A Cochlear Implants is a device that provdes direct electrical stimulation to the auditory (hearing) nerve in the inner ear.” (“Cochlear Implants”) Cochlear Implants bypass the damaged hair cells, and directly stimulate the auditory nerve. Depending on when the Cochlear Implant is implanted it allows people to hear sounds, and sometimes even their own voice. While it does not cure hearing loss or deafness, it does allow people to hear. On more technical terms a Cochlear Implant includes parts like a microphone, speech processor, and a transmitter which each play a different part in the Cochlear Implant. The microphone picks up sounds, sends them to the speech processer, and then the speech processor analyzes and digitized the sound signal, thus sending them to a transmitter worn on the head. The debate of whether or not Cochlear Implants are right in the deaf community is one that has been going on for years. People believe having Cochlear Implants are a good thing, because they allow deaf people to communicate with hearing people, it allows people who are not helped by conventional hearing aids to be helped, and it creates new possibilities for deaf people. However there are also people that argue that having a Cochlear Implant is a bad thing, because it proposes the idea that deaf people need to be fixed, it can give deaf people false hope, and it proposes the idea that deaf people have a

Before this surge, deaf education in American schools, for well over 200 years, had gone by the hearing world's dogma: oral communication, based on print-centered literacy, had always been strongly insisted upon, and manual, visual communication discouraged (if it was allowed at all). The reasoning was that if deaf people were to function and communicate, they must do so as if they can hear; if they can't get along in the hearing world, they can't get along at all, and knowing the dominant (hearing) culture's language, doing well with its literacy, is the key to "getting along."

To start with, cochlear implants won’t change the person’s identity because it’s a helpful device in which won’t change the individual’s physical aspects. According to the movie Sound and Fury documentary, the child Peter was given a cochlear implant after a few months of birth. Peter’s surgery was a success in which he continued being who he is even after given an implant. The implant can be easily put back on the child and even removed in which he would be back to normal. Another reason why the cochlear implant won’t change the person’s identity because it is meant for someone deaf to actually hear. According to Source A, its states that “ Some commentators attacked the medical profession's role in the creation of such negative images of

A Cochlear Implant is an electronic device that partially restores hearing in people who have severe hearing loss due to damage of the inner ear and who receive limited benefit from hearing aids (http://www.cochlear.com/wps/wcm/connect/au/home/understand/hearing-and-hl/hl-treatments/cochlear-implant). In some cases there are patients whose hearing did not adjust correctly, having a risk of developing a virus, complications after the surgery, the benefits of sign language without a cochlear implant and lastly children or adults with cochlear implants may not even develop a good speech. There are many positive and negative articles I have read on cochlear implants. As a parent you are not only putting your child at risk, you are also withdrawing them from the deaf community, the one they were naturally born into. I do not support cochlear implants, children should not be implanted until they are grown to the point where they can make their own choice

Deaf culture in is one of America’s many sub-cultures, which means that it is a culture imbedded into the overall culture of the nation. What is unique about the deaf culture is that at times it is a sub-culture of a sub-culture, of a culture, for example the deaf community in Colorado is a sub-culture of Colorado’s culture, and Colorado culture is a sub-culture of the American culture. It can get even more complicated than even that, because say there is an African American deaf culture in the deaf community that adds another deaf culture. It is also unique and set apart from other cultures because of the language barrier between the deaf community and the hearing community. Deaf culture has only recently been accepted by the general public, as well as they have not always had access to an interpreter. Deaf culture has changed drastically since before the 1960’s.

Crouch, on the opposing end, would disagree with Tucker’s justifications as to why cochlear implants should be provided at an early age. In this case, he would side with the friends of Sean and Mary with saying that these implants would completely eliminate the child from the Deaf community. He believes that one should take pride in being a part of this unique community as opposed to viewing it as a disability or impairment. Crouch’s reasoning behind this is that by a parent deciding to adapt their child to a world where they think their child would be “better-off” is not acceptable. But doing so, the child is less likely to succeed, contrary to what Tucker believes. Crouch would propose that parents should not force cochlear implants upon

Since a forced cochlear implant would introduce the child into the hearing culture, this decision would limit the child’s opportunity to explore and learn more about the Deaf culture. One such example demonstrates this by showcasing a video containing an interview with the hearing parents of a deaf girl who has a cochlear implant; in this video, the parents stated that the reason why they chose to have their daughter receive the cochlear implant, who was at the age of three and a half, was because the child was struggling with her deafness and that the cochlear implant was the only solution that would fix the issue (“Cochlear Implants – A Cultural Threat”, n.d.). The main issue here was that the parents believed that the only way their daughter would have a happy life was to use the cochlear implant; there was little consideration given to alternative methods, primarily because she was at a young age. If a forced cochlear implant were to be given to all Deaf children early on in their lives, they would be given no choice but to accept the hearing culture; although they could have functioned well in the Deaf culture, the culture that they were born in, the mandatory cochlear implant forces them into a culture that opposes their

Those that oppose cochlear implants argue mostly from a minority standpoint. The deaf community feels that as the minority, the hearing majority is threatening their way of life. “The deaf community is a culture. They’re much like the culture of the Hispanic community, for example, where parents who are Hispanics, or shall we say deaf, would naturally want to retain their family ties by their common language, their primary language, which is

This article "I Have a Child With a Cochlear Implant in My Preschool Classroom. Now, What?" by Carrie A. Davenport and Sheila R. Albert-Morgan dealt with the issue of exploring the fact that although cochlear implant technology is progressing rapidly through the years, there is however still a lack of capacity at the school level. This article also provides awareness of what individualized education program (IEP) teams can practice while raising the learning skills of a deaf child who uses cochlear implants. The main focus of this article is to help teachers provide the best education for children who are deaf and use cochlear implants while in classrooms, by implementing ways teachers can provide the appropriate accommodations to their students,

CI’s were manufactured in order to create ease of function in day to day lives of deaf people but has conjured up ethical and social issues amongst specific cultures. Across different cultures there are opposing and parallel beliefs regarding cochlear implants and the benefits and harms regarding the process of implanting one. Many deaf communities within western cultures such as America and Australia view CI’s as unnecessary and offensive towards deaf culture. According to a majority of cultures, receiving CI’s is seen as inappropriate and takes away a person’s identity. Heather Artinian, in the annual TED conference who is a deaf person who wears cochlear implants explained that receiving cochlear implants places the individual between two identities, neither deaf nor hearing. This is because once receiving her cochlear implants, the deaf community within her western culture no longer perceives her as a deaf person because, following receiving the implants, she was able to hear sounds and communicate in ways which deaf people who hadn’t received the implants could not. She too described that she was also not part of the hearing culture as she was not considered as a hearing individual due to being born deaf and despite receiving the CI’s, is still regarded as deaf opposed to as a

The article “Parents of deaf children with cochlear implants: a study of technology and community” focus mostly on the clinical structures and how parents decide to use cochlear implant or not. The data shows that the clinic, the state and local school districts are working together to anticipate parental needs.