Cochlear Implants: The Culture Of The Deaf

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

According to Edwards, the Deaf community began to rise in response to the social view of deafness as a handicap rather than a difference that a whole “Deaf” community is characterized by. Their shared

The advent of new technologies such as the cochlear implant will not ultimately eradicate Deaf culture. The Deaf community is too close-knit to become torn apart. Not everyone has access to these new technologies because they are not eligible for them or the price is not right for their low budgets. Similarly, not everyone will be successful with the cochlear implant and most will return to Deaf culture for the rest of their lives. However, for those who are successful, they can still be a part of Deaf culture if they are bilingual and have adequate access to the Deaf community and its members. Knowledge is power and ASL education is spreading throughout high schools and universities all over the United States. These are several factors that

In addition, the deaf culture is afraid to lose their language. With the new generation of deaf and hard of hearing choosing cochlear implants over traditional sign language, the deaf culture is afraid to disappear. I spoke to a couple once that couldn’t agree whether an implant was the right choice for their son, the reason was that the father was deaf and only used sign language. This father explained that if his son was implanted he would never sign and communication between them would be minimal. Instead of being afraid they should educate their son on their amazing culture and explain to them how sign language is essential and part of their identity.

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

While reading the article, “understanding Deafness: Not Everyone Wants to Be `fixed`”, Allegra Ringo shine a light on a conflict with cochlear implants within the Deaf community that most hearing people such as myself were probably unaware of. After reading this article I feel a little upset that Alexander Graham Bell Association (AGB) is not telling parents of Deaf children what the Deaf community can really offer to Deaf children. Instead, they are just telling parents how much better off they can be if they can hear and that they could offer it with cochlear implants. I think that the Deaf community is over by parents with a child that is born Deaf or hard of hearing. My opinion is that people need to be taught about the Deaf community and that there is nothing wrong with being Deaf.

Some of Bowen’s friends from the deaf community still refuses to receive the surgical implant because they fear how their deaf family and community would feel about them receiving. Chris, one of Bowen’s friends stated “ The reason why we still haven’t gotten the implant is because the deaf culture is where we belong with our own sets of social beliefs, language, customs, and even history. The hearing world views deafness as an impairment, however the deaf community learned how to encourage and embrace deafness as something more.” The way I saw it, the hearing world saw it has a disease, imperfection that needs to be cured, but with the cure at hand it can lead to a complete ethnocide.

The American Medical Association, which happens to be the largest association of physicians, stated, “The main concern of the cochlear implant supporters is for the deaf child to have access to the mainstream, or ‘normal’ hearing world”. In fact, the AMA continues to state that the benefits from a cochlear implantation ranges from a person being able to detect sounds to understanding lip reading. It’s understandable how important it is for hearing parents to be able to communicate with their deaf child because being deaf is a communication barrier. Hearing parents would be giving their deaf child unlimited opportunities throughout their life to achieve equal amounts of success as the next hearing person. However, trying to normalize a child against can be increasingly more harmful to the child’s physical, mental, and intellectual stability. Rather than helping, most parents in these cases can cause their child to be less accepting and comfortable about being deaf instead of demonstrating to them that being deaf does not mean you can not have a normal life. Besides hearing parents can find a way to close the communication barrier with their child by learning sign

People with cochlear implants can help the two different communities understand each other better. Since they are able to speak for both of the communities, they can help unify them. Can they persuade the deaf people that despise these implants to accept them? How can they make them feel like they aren’t something that needs to be fixed?

Who really needs cochlear implants, the deaf or the hearing? Do these implants actually fix someone who isn’t ill? When you are no longer consider deaf, but are not hearing either you are essentially isolated. So why go through with a painful procedure that fixes nothing but the amount of work the hearing have to do to communicate?

The reasoning behind the latter’s stand lies on the fact that many members of the Deaf community believe that being deaf is not a disability, but rather an alternate lifestyle, a different way of being. They see any intrusion into Deaf culture and more particularly, the possibility for some or all of their members to be able to hear, as a potential threat to their culture and language. While for many this fear could seem irrational, it is similar to the emotions and feelings of individuals from different cultures who migrate to other regions or countries where a different culture is practiced. Just as many immigrants or exiles fear assimilation and even integration, the members of the Deaf community see hearing implants as a way to lose their family members or friends to “the other side”. This fear to a different, outside culture is fairly understandable, therefore neither the protagonists of the film, nor those individuals who actively oppose hearing implants, should be negatively judged because of their stand in the subject. The main misconception that exists with regard to

Many people believe deafness makes someone dumb. The common term for the deaf back then was deaf and dumb. They believed that the deaf could not be taught and they couldn’t learn anything. According to the Center for Parent Information and Resources, Deafness is an “impairment that is so severe that he/she is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification.” There is not a specific onset of age. I have a friend who is hard of hearing. She acquired it over the years of playing our extremely loud music. Many times during movies she will ask someone to turn on the closed captions so she can pay closer attention.

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,

The cochlear implant has been a hot topic in the deaf community for some time now and after all this time they still stand strong with their beliefs on the implant and why they think it is an unnecessary step deaf people do not need to go through. The majority of the deaf community firmly believe that being deaf is not a restriction it does not hold them back from doing what they want in their lives and above anything being deaf is not a handicap. To a lot of deaf people the cochlear implant is kind of an insult to their culture because its trying to fix something that they believe is not broken so it creates a very hard situation for many families who might be pressured by deaf people they know like family or just members from the community who are against cochlear implants. This issue with cochlear implants is not the first time the deaf community has faced a situation where their beliefs are challenged by the hearing community before the creation of the cochlear implant oralism was gaining a lot of attention by the deaf community because of attempts of the hearing to try to get deaf kids to learn how to read lips instead of learn sign language which the deaf community did not like at all. As you can see this is pretty much the same situation where the hearing community try to fix something that the deaf community believed did not need to be fixed which creates a lot of problems because the deaf do not want to be treated like they are broken or like they need to be fixed