Cochlear Implants Argument

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.�

Language is communicated in various ways. Yet, there are still children who are denied the privilege of having one. Only ten percent of deaf children are born to deaf parents. This means around ninety percent are born to hearing parents. Most hearing parents have never been exposed to American Sign Language (ASL), so they do not teach it to their deaf child. One of the main reasons this happens is hearing parents tend to deny their child's deafness (Gray, n.d.). Instead, they choose to have their baby get a cochlear implant (CI). Parental decisions regarding cochlear implantation may be influenced by what they understand it means to be deaf. Basically, they see being deaf as a disability and are more apt to consider

People used to think that being Deaf was a sin and a major disability. I don’t really understand this view, as being Deaf is not a choice because a majority of the time, most people are born Deaf. Just because a person can’t hear, doesn’t mean there is something wrong with them. Deaf culture is so mesmerizing as their is such a deep connection within the community and they even have their own language. What people need to do is put themselves in the shoes of a Deaf person and imagine how difficult it must be being the “odd one out” all the time.

In mainstream American society, we tend to approach deafness as a defect. Helen Keller is alleged to have said, "Blindness cuts people off from things; deafness cuts people off from people." (rnib.org) This seems a very accurate description of what Keller's world must have been. We as hearing people tend to pity deaf people, or, if they succeed in the hearing world, admire them for overcoming a severe handicap. We tend to look at signing as an inferior substitute for "real" communication. We assume that all deaf people will try to lip-read and we applaud deaf people who use their voices to show us how far they have come from the grips of their disability. Given this climate, many hearing people are surprised, as I was at

Studies have shown that if a child receives a cochlear implant before the child is 18 months old followed by intensive therapy the child is likely to develop language skills that are comparable to their peers and many children are able to attend mainstream schooling. This sounds great to parents, but what happens when the cochlear implant doesn’t work or if the child doesn’t receive the necessary therapy for understanding sound using the cochlear implant. Because the children were not exposed to American sign language (ASL) this can delay the children education and learning compared to their peers. When children are born to hearing parents they want the child to be like them and be able to hear. To the hearing, deafness is a disability and if there is a way that they can make their child hear, most parents will do everything in their power to make sure they can give that to their child. Then again, many parents forget is that living with a cochlear implant is a lifelong process and involves years to decades of therapy for their child. And if a child receives the implant later than 18 months old it becomes harder for the child to understand speech from a cochlear implant and more intensive therapy for the child. Children start learning language from their parents listening to them talk to others and talk to the baby. If the child is deaf, they are missing this important development of speech, which makes it harder for the child to learn to speak and understanding language. Also, most hearing parents don’t know ASL or sign fluently to be able to teach their children the language and help them to start learning and be able to communicate with society. Today there are still parents that will not learn ASL even though their child is deaf or maybe they received a cochlear implant and it didn’t work. This

The documentary Sound and Fury by Roger Weisberg takes its views inside the rarely seen world of deaf culture for the family struggle over controversial medical technology known as the 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

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

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

There's way too many things I want to say about the movie, Sound and Fury. Let me just start by saying that it's fascinating how every time I watch the movie, I learn something new or I have a new point of view on certain topics in the movie! That's only because I've learned many things or the way I view the world changed over time. So naturally what my beliefs and opinions were like 5 years ago are obviously not going to be similiar today.

The deaf community does not see their hearing impairment as a disability but as a culture which includes a history of discrimination, racial prejudice, and segregation. According to an online transcript,“Through Deaf Eyes” (Weta and Florentine films/Hott productions Inc., 2007) there are thirty-five million Americans that are hard of hearing. Out of the thirty-five million an estimated 300,000 people are completely deaf. There are ninety percent of deaf people who have hearing parents (Halpern, C., 1996). Also, most deaf parents have hearing children. With this being the exemplification, deaf people communicate on a more intimate and significant level with hearing people all their lives. “Deaf people can be found in every ethnic group,

I feel like the film SOUND, AND FURY is a fascinating film which looks at the often overlooked deaf culture in contemporary society. By following two families, the film looks at how the societal pressures and the impacts of the cochlear implant have on deaf families, and deaf culture. For years, deaf individuals have been told they are less than or different, and after years of stigmatization, and ill treatment many people have become part of deaf culture, which does not look at deafness as a disability, but rather a different way of life. For parents, the option of giving their deaf child a cognitive implant means that they would be able to hear, and thus, grow up communicating through auditory channels with the outside world. While for many parents, this seems like a gift, many families feel like it is shaming deaf culture, affirming beliefs that deafness is something to be ashamed of, and disconnect them from deaf culture. In the film, we see the Artinian family, who has family members over three generations in Long Island, New York, who have hearing exceptionalities. Within the movie, we mainly see the lives of the two very different Artinian brothers. One brother Peter, who is married to a deaf woman, has a deaf daughter and was born deaf. The other brother does not have congenital deafness but married a woman whom also has connections to deaf culture, with two parents who are deaf. This couple has two twin boys one who is deaf and one who can hear. In the film, we see