Cochlear Implants : The Deaf Or The Hearing?

     A cochlear implant is an electronic device that restores hearing for people anywhere from hard of hearing to the profoundly deaf. The cochlear implant is surgically implanted under the skin behind the ear. The surgeon puts the electrode array inside the inner ear and than inside the cochlea. The implant works by a device outside the ear, which rests on the skin behind the ear. It is held upright by a magnet and is also connected by a lead to a sound professor.

A cochlear implant is a medical device that essentially does the same thing that a cochlea (inner ear) would do. Unlike hearing aids, cochlear implants do not make the sound louder, they allow sound to go by parts of the cochlea and stimulate the nerves that allow you to hear sound. Because Heather was the first deaf Miss America, this sparked controversy. People thought that Heather should not have gotten a cochlear implant because she represented the Deaf and hard of hearing community. Although some people did not agree with her decisions, within three to five years she could understand complex sounds like

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

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

Most doctors recommend that children with cochlear implant only use spoken language as a method of communication so they can maximize the benefits from the cochlear implant. However, the popular method of communication for children with cochlear implants is total communication which is the integration of oral communication and ASL. Although Heather Artinian was fluent in ASL before she received her cochlear implant, she was able to communicate with hearing and deaf people through both ASL and spoken language after years of intensive speech therapy (Aronson, Sound and Fury: Six Years Later). When cochlear implant users take it off, they cannot hear any sounds so they are technically still deaf. Even though they are able to hear sounds, cochlear implant recipients will not be able to identify themselves as hearing individuals. When they bridge the gap between the deaf and hearing world, they can still be a part of both cultures without defining themselves as a part of only one culture (TedX: The Heather World). Therefore, the cochlear implant can be a great device for deaf people who want to stay in the Deaf community but still be able to take advantage of additional opportunities in the hearing

A cochlear implant is an implanted medical device for the deaf or hard of hearing that do not benefit from the traditional hearing aid. It is composed of an internal device that is implanted in the recipient’s head and an external device that is the sound processor. The sound processor collects sound and then transmits it to the implanted device, which then sends it directly to the brain to be interpreted as language. During the time that I was choosing a hearing solution for my daughter I experienced a lot of negative opinions from the deaf culture (community of deaf people who share sign language among other things). They seem to be against parents choosing to have their small children implanted. The deaf culture presumes

Cochlear implants consists of three external parts: a microphone, a speech processor, and a transmitter. The internal parts include: a receiver and stimulator and an array of up to 22 electrodes, depending on how much amplification is needed. Cochlear implants work by bypassing all the damaged parts of the ear to directly stimulate the tiny hair cells on the cochlea that direct sound frequencies to the auditory nerve. (ASHA 2013)

The National Institute on Deafness defines the cochlear implant as, “… a small, complex electronic device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard-of-hearing.” The cochlear implant was first introduced in 1979 and it is estimated that 324,000 implants have been implanted worldwide. The surgery is proven to work better when the child being implanted is young, preferably younger than five. It is ideal to implant a child before their language or speech has developed. The FDA has approved children as young as 12-months old to receive the cochlear implant.

2) I feel another great achievement in the last fifty years has been the cochlear implant. This is a surgically implanted in a patient’s cochlea in their ear that is deaf or severally hearing impaired, because of damage to the sensory cells in their cochlea. www.cochlear.com/‎

Claire is now transitioning into preschool, and her parents are worried about what Claire's first school experience will be like but luckily for Claire her new teacher, Ms. Williams, is a veteran preschool teacher and in the past, Ms. Williams has taught students with disabilities who use alternative communication systems but from what I read in the article Ms. Williams doesn't have any experience in working with children cochlear implant nevertheless she is very eager to learn and work with Claire. Ms. Williams seems a bit nervous to work with Claire and has several questions about cochlear implants. Ms. Williams has heard that the cochlear implant devices are very expensive and she is worried about simply keeping track of Claire's device, she also worries about the troubleshooting of the device if something goes wrong, is there a difference between teaching a child with a cochlear implant and teaching other children with disabilities. Although Ms. Williams is anxious to learn more about cochlear implants and how to best support Claire's developing listening and communication skills. Ms. Williams assumes Claire will need a variety of visual supports and she wonders about the different types of visual supports and accommodations that Claire might

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 cochlear implant consists of 5 key components: a microphone, speech processor, transmitter, receiver/ stimulator and an electrode array. It is essential that all of these components operate with extreme precision in order for the brain to interpret the sounds it’s receiving, and this is where the physics gets

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.