The Pros And Cons Of Cochlear Implants

     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

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

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

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

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.

According to the Deaf Culture Centre, Deaf Culture is defined as the “heart of the Deaf community everywhere in the world. Language and culture are inseparable. They are intertwined and passed down through generations of Deaf people.” It is estimated that nearly 20 percent of Americans live with some form of hearing loss, yet deaf and hard of hearing society members remain oppressed by the mainstream culture (Callis). These people that identify with the deaf culture, use American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate. ASL is a combination of hand signs and facial expressions that are unique to the Deaf community. Deaf people view deafness as a blessing and a unique way to live life. They are very proud and prideful. In the Deaf culture, the decision of getting a cochlear implant has been controversial for many years.

There are many things that people in the hearing world take for granted every day, such as verbal communication, using a telephone or something as simple as the feeling you get when your favorite song comes on the radio. To a person that has been completely immersed in the deaf community, it may be easy to view the sense of sound as unnecessary. As a member of the haring community it would seem nearly impossible to live a day without sound. Cochlear implants are devices that help a person who is deaf gain hearing to some degree, and in some cases nearly full hearing. This new technology has become very controversial throughout both the hearing, and the deaf world.

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.

Passages A & B have different views on what would work best for the Deaf people, but they both want want a positive outcome for the Deaf community. Passage A mainly talks about how the cochlear implants do not benefit deaf people and how the permanent effects from it can be a disadvantage for the implant patient in the deaf community. “Implanted children would "end up trapped between two worlds: they can't live the way hearing people can, and yet they won't have grown up in the deaf community, using ASL" (Zimmer 85)”. The author helps the reader understand the Deaf community rather then understand the medical view of cochlear implants.

My decision for my child if they are indeed born deaf is to not get the implant. I would like to let my child learn everything that they can about who they are. Although cochlear implants are more beneficial for a child at a young age the cochlear implant may still help any child at any age. I chose not to implant my child because they can make that choice when they are 15 or 1 years of age. With persistence and hard work they can grow in learning how to speak with the cochlear implant.

At the beginning of the movie, the little girl, Heather, decided to ask her deaf parents if she could get a cochlear implant. Her parents were hesitant at first but they decided to look in to how it could improve her life. At first, Heather’s dad, Peter, was totally against Heather getting the cochlear implant because he felt that it was against the deaf culture but after his wife, Nita, thought that maybe she would also like a cochlear he opened up to the idea of looking into them. Nita only wanted a cochlear implant to see what it was like and she wanted it so she could help Heather with it as much as possible. Nita eventually decided that she no longer wanted the implant.

surrounding cochlear implants in infants, and if parents making permanent decisions for their children’s futures are a violation of their child’s rights. As I discussed earlier, cochlear implants have the ability to completely combat the effect deafness would have on development in infancy and childhood.

People who are in the deaf community resent cochlear implants for the effect it has on some people's lives they get happy knowing they can actually hear when they do use cochlear implants and hearing aids. When deaf people uses a cochlear implant they work in a certain degree in their lives deaf people can sometimes speak but some can’t speak at all when they are deaf they think hearing is an amazing thing for them because that’s their very first time actually hearing the world and what it is like to hear people and her other things in their life for once. Cochlear Implant is a good for a hearing person they get to hear everything in the world they never thought they would hear in their life about

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