Hearing Aids : The New Era Of Understanding Technology And Incorporating It Into Everyday Life Essay

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.�

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

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

Deafness or hard of hearing, is defined by the medical society as a disability, but those who are diagnosed with the disability think otherwise. They think of themselves as a community, embrace it as an identity, or a culture with their own language, sign language, and they believe their community is being threaten. They label themselves as a minority endangered of being wiped out because of one leading cause, cochlear implants. Those serious about their ideals of their community see cochlear implants as a threat, because cochlear implants are considered as cure. Countless number of controversies over cochlear implants have been brought up, but the Deaf community should see cochlear implants as gift for patients rather than an extreme threat.

This mindset has sparked incredible backlash from the Deaf community. The Deaf community has fought through years of discrimination and oppression to be viewed as equal human beings, therefore the introduction of these implants further emphasised that deafness is something abnormal and that it should be fixed. An article from NPR reminds us that historically parents had to “send their son or daughter away to a boarding school for the deaf” (NPR par. 1), which is why the Deaf community is fighting so hard for their elevated status to be protected.The National Association of the Deaf suggests that the idea that deafness needs to be fixed is due to the fact that “There is little or no portrayal of successful, well adjusted deaf and hard of hearing children and adults without implants” (National Association of the Deaf par. 8). It is easy to understand why parents would choose to implant their children when there is little shown about successful unimplanted Deaf people. They fear that their child may suffer academically from not being able to fully comprehend class lessons or not be able to get their dream job, or any higher paying job, due to not being able to hear. Also, they fear for their safety. They worry about their child not hearing a car coming or an emergency alarm. Cochlear implants give deaf people the opportunity to abandon their deafness and the

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,

The cochlear implant is quite possibly one of the greatest ideas invented to benefit the deaf community. American Sign Language (ASL) has been the main way the deaf communicate and is extremely important to the deaf culture. To those that can hear, being deaf or profoundly hard of hearing has been considered a handicap. It was for that reason that someone invented the cochlear implant, causing a huge debate within the deaf community. Some of those in the deaf community fear that their culture will be lost and destroyed, while others and the hearing community believe that it will better their lives. Most do not realize that this procedure is not a cure and that it will leave those with the implants confused as to where they belong in society.

Today, in the United States, every two-thirds of every one thousand children are deaf or hard of hearing (Hearing Loss Association of America). This causes their everyday lives to be shaped much differently than normal children. They may have cochlear implants to help them hear. In fact, “In the United States, more than 25,000 children have received cochlear implants (Lenihan 2010). The child may also have a translator in the classroom to help them understand their regular teacher or may using American Sign Language (ASL) to help them in terms of speaking to another.

Over 360 million people or about five percent of the world population have disabling hearing loss (Deafness). Disabling hearing loss refers to hearing loss greater than 40 decibels for adults and a hearing loss of greater than 30 decibels for children (Deafness). 40 decibels is equivalent to the tune of a refrigerator humming. Although hearing loss can be mild, moderate, severe, or profound -- there are numerous ways of improving the damaged hearing (Deafness). The most common ways are through hearing aids and cochlear implants. Cochlear implants is a type of implanted electronic hearing device; it is designed to produce hearing sensations that are useful to a person with profound nerve deafness Cochlear Implants -€“ Facts). The device is more ideal for people who cannot benefit substantially with the help of hearing aids (Cochlear Implants -€“ Facts). Today, over 219,00 people are using Cochlear Implants (Cochlear Implants, Baylor). The technology used in cochlear implants is more complex and improves hearing and communication skills drastically. Despite cochlear implants having many disadvantages, there are more benefits that will help towards improving hearing loss.

Sometimes people forget that eyesight and hearing are not something that everybody has. There are some people in the world that are living without one or both of these senses. In some circumstances, these two senses are able to be given to somebody who hasn’t had them before. There are many different procedures and ways for a person to either gain their eyesight or hearing again, for the first time in their life. In terms of hearing, there is a procedure that is booming popularity all over the world. Along with having the surgery, the patient then wears a device called a cochlear implant. Cochlear Implants are changing the world of hearing so that people who receive them are able to gain hearing ability to sounds around them. This partially unknown medical procedure is gaining more attention around the world with its high success rates and its ability to change peoples lives forever.

The deaf community 's feelings about the Cochlear Implant is controversial, some believe that if one is born deaf then that 's what they

Cochlear implants are an electronic device that gives people with a sever hearing loss, the ability to hear. This device gives them ability to do something no other device could offer. It allows someone to be part of two worlds, deaf and hearing. So many people think its wrong and that you 're changing your child, that you should accept them for who he/she is. I don’t see it that way, if you have a child wouldn’t you want the best for them? Want them to have the best things? Have a good life, better than the one you had? By giving my child the cochlear implant I am doing that for them, giving them the best of the best of technology that will benefit them so much and give them such a great life. Since having it implanted at a young age, they still have the ability to learn languages, so as they grow up they will practice signing and speaking so they can use both through out their life.

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

“I wanted to make the first thing you hear me asking you to marry me”. These are the profoundly astounding words Andrea Diaz heard her boyfriend exclaim to her after the receival of her first cochlear implant. A deaf woman, she had never before been able to comprehend her boyfriend's voice, and to her amazement she heard his first words proclaiming the desire to begin the rest of their lives together. This miraculous moment was made possible because of cochlear implants recent inception; and ability to stimulate the innards of one's ear in order to develop a sensitivity to sound wave vibrations, but it never used to be as popular choice of hearing aid as it is an expensive procedure with minute possible damage. It sparked much controversy in both the scientific and deaf community as it was considered an inhumane practice by researchers, and an embarrassment to deaf individuals as they felt it was not a problem that should be looked upon with pity as something that needs to be “fixed”. The cochlear implant has seen much innovation and technological changes since its recent inception; furthermore, the implant has aided the lives of the deaf community through new forms of communication, and seeks to be improved as time progresses.