The Is A Cure For Deafness

     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.

(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

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

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

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

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

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)

Or even a deaf person that is able to hear voices, pick out music notes with hearing aids. They usually will recommend cochlear implants for the profoundly death. However from the HLAA (Hearing Loss Association of America) discussed that “About one-fourth of the overall range of outcome can be explained based on the length of deafness and about one-sixth of depends on the word understanding capabilities prior to implantation. Other patient, ear and device variables demonstrated no significant correlations with the benefit achieved with respect to speech recognition.” Meaning cochlear implants are still an unperfected machinery to help all deaf humans.

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/‎

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

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

Different frequencies reach their peak at different positions along the tube, which allows the cochlea to distinguish them. Researchers have found that the spiral shape significantly enhances the “vibrational motions” that translate into nerve signals. However, if the cochlear is damaged it is obvious how important the development of the cochlear implant is. Essentially the cochlear implant serves as a bypass for damaged sections of the ear, replacing the function of the ineffective hair cells.

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.

Sounds and speech are captured by a microphone and sent to the external speech processor. The processor then translates the sounds into electrical signals, which are then sent to the transmitting coil. These codes travel up a cable to the headpiece and are transmitted across the skin through radio waves to the implanted cochlea electrodes. The electrodes’ signals then stimulate the auditory nerve fibres to send information to the brain where it is interpreted as meaningful sound.