Deaf Culture Cochlear Implants

Question: Cochlear implant? I was raised Oral and learned American Sign Language all my life after I was diagnosed with hearing loss and became profoundly deaf. What is hardest thing for me is that I have to be a neutral or a bridge for two different deaf worlds. One that use ASL and other use oralism. I have several deaf friends who are Oral and alot of deaf friends who are ASL. Cochlear implant changed my life literally. It allowed me to have better of two worlds; deaf and hearing. It also allowed me to have better of two cultures; Oralism and ASL. Cochlear implant is not a cure. It is just a voluntary treatment. It is not extermination for deaf people, who use ASL. I'm just a nice person. There is no reason why few deaf people should scoff or being rude at me if I have cochlear implant. Its their losses if they need an interpreter / a help. so the question is "What is so controversial about cochlear implant?"

Answer: Language and culture are inextricably interconnected. With Cochlear implants a lot of parents are told that they should never allow their children to use gestures or learn sign language because they will be a crutch (personally I think the idea is a load of bull...a language is a language and children raised bilingually learn both proficiently so why should ASL and English be any different?). Deaf people get upset about this because this view denies the child his or her natural language and therefore his or her natural cultural niche. There is a PBS documentary that goes into the debate. It is fairly good, and apparently it has recently been updated. It is titled "Sound and Fury." For more information go here: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/soundandfury/ Basically I think it comes down to deaf people feel their culture, language and way of life are threatened.

Question: Would you change a child's sexual orientation? This is not a right or wrong question. I am seeking opinions. Deaf Culture, which is rich and established, faces extinction because of the Cochlear Implant. Children who receive the Cochlear Implant will speak the way that "normal" hearing children do and be integrated into the hearing world the way "normal" children are. There are treatments for children with genetic Dwarfism that make them taller. The children do not become basketball player tall, but the treatments bring them into the "normal" range (above 5 feet). There is often resistance the destruction of one's culture and opposition to a subjective and/or imposed "normal". If you are a gay parent would you choose to change your child's sexual orientation if it were possible? If so, would you choose to make your child heterosexual or homosexual?

Answer: To be honest, I've watched my cousn make the same choice with his two boys, not with the sexual conotation obviously but with the growth hormone. We have a very short ancestor in our recent paternal line and the boys took after him, so their parents opted for growth hormones. The boys will now be nominally 5 footish, give or take a couple of inches. Personally I wouldn't have given them the treatment but I do know how cruel children in school can be to anyone different than they are. As for the genetic treratment for homo vs hetero sexual I would allow my child to be what they were going to be naturally. I still would prefer to not be messing around with genomes.

Question: why are Deaf people so prejudiced? i know it sounds wrong but they dont want to be called disabled but they have no problem taking a disability check from uncle sam, the way they want deaf spelled with a big D they are in the involved in the Deaf culture but with a little d they have a implant, they have there own gathering and preach deaf pride but if white people get in a group and preach white pride they are racist, they will not accept the cochlear implant to parsley fix there hearing but they will get a cast for there broken arm, they have there own phone system, and if you dont accept how they live you are a ignorant uneducated person. and yes i have token the time to do some research on deafness learn sign language and sign to some Deaf people and got to know them and found out they are the most stuck up self center people i have ever meet just to name a few things. i know that that is how god made them and they have adjusted to "fit in" in the real world but there attitude towards others hearing people and deaf people with the implant. also i dont cair how unpolitical correct i am sour gummy girl calling them hearing impaired was a term used in the 90s and is now unacceptably because it is inferring that there ears are broke and the correct term is Deaf or deaf depending on there life style

Answer: this really makes me angry. sorry, just putting that out there. Deaf people have just as much right to meet in groups of only deaf people and have their own culture as gay people or jews or christians or wiccans or any other religion or group (be it majority or minority). just because they have to adapt their way of communicating to fit their need doesnt make them any more prejudiced than anybody else. i suppose the deaf people you met were just stuck up people, having nothing to do with being deaf or not.

Question: If you had (or have) a deaf child, what would (or did) you do? I don't have any kids, but I do have a cousin who's deaf. (I have unusually strong hearing.) He and I are the same age, so we grew up together and still do a lot of stuff together. We've been talking about deafness a lot recently, and it's got me thinking. If you had a kid who was born profoundly deaf, would you give them a cochlear implant or would you let them be deaf? Personally, I think I would let my kid be deaf, because there is a lot they can still do and there is a big Deaf culture. I can't sign, but I could learn. And because I have unusually strong hearing, I can kind of sympathize with people who have cochlear implants... the harshness of noise evidently bothers a lot of people. I wouldn't want to subject my kid to that, especially since I've heard people say that their cochlear implants aren't much help with spoken language because things sound garbled. But, I don't know... maybe that seems outrageous to some folks. What would/did you do?

Answer: It is a difficult decision. The cochlear implant technology has improved over the years so if a deaf child is a good candidate it is hard to think no. Not that a CI guarantees successful voicing skills and auditory skills. Having said that, there has to be understanding frm parents that a CI does not make the child hearing.. the kid is still deaf. And many a deaf kid has become a teen and switched off the CI preferring to be *D*eaf and use ASL. Another problem is that the medical establishment and anti-Deaf signed language groups try to persuade these nervous parents that they shld NOT let their child sign at all, which is criminal in my mind.

Question: What are the NEGATIVE qualities of Cochlear Implants? So. I'm deaf in one ear, and nearly deaf in the other. (To where hearing aids are ineffective) I've been in silence for about 4 years. (To throw some salt in the game, I lost my voice soon after, making communicating harder than ever) This aside, I adapted. Life is still a challenge, but I manage. My mom is also deaf and has been for about 8 years. Recently, I heard from a friend just how amazingly helpful cochlear implants can be and I considered it as a real blessing and quite honestly think it'd be a miracle to have my hearing back. But, my mom was talking about something like this just after she went deaf. It was so long ago I can't remember the serious details. But what stuck in my mind was; she could have had a surgical implantation to get her hearing back but she said no to it because every sound would be high pitched and robotic. I didn't, and still don't understand that. Isn't any hearing- even artificial hearing- better than none at all? But back to my story, I am seeing my doctor to go over the implants and wanted to hear any negatives of it since I can only see people talking about the positives. (What little negative things I hear are from Deaf culture and those who were born deaf and think it'd just get in the way if they could hear) If anyone here has them, please tell me all about it. Like healing time, if earaches are often, and how the ears are cleaned after getting the implants. Oh, and since I forget things often, I'm going to just print this and all answers off to show my doctor when I see her in a few days. So details are really helpful.

Answer: I'm partially def too. My great uncle was in the army and gun fires made him def. The military paid for his implants. Any who he loves them more than anything. He said that they are better than not being able to hear at all. Ever tried talking to your Audiologist about hearing aids?

Question: POLL: If you were born and raised Deaf, would you want the ability to hear if you could have it? I found out in my Genomics class that a lot of Deaf people don't want to hear. They don't want the cochlear implants. They've found such a community with the Deaf culture and with sign language, that being able to hear would be like taking their own identity away.

Answer: I have never heard of a Deaf parent that was significantly upset at having a child born that could hear. A friend of mine lives with her adult daughter while she is in college, and the daughter can hear. There is no 'stigma' about being CODA, and she loves her hearing daughter just as much as she would if she where born Deaf. Lots of deaf people, and lots of diverse opinions on the cochlear implants. Once we realize that they are not a magical tool that grants perfect hearing ability, and that they carry significant health risks, and that they destroy whatever residual natural hearing that a person may have, and that people looking at a person with such an implant may assume the person as 100% perfect hearing, etc, we start to see why. If someone is Deaf, they are Deaf and that is that. Getting a cochlear implant is more like a blind person learning to read braille and getting a guide dog, and should NOT be compared to a blind person suddenly having vision again. You can put all the robot body parts in a person you want, that person will still be deaf and at some point loved ones need to come to terms with it and go learn some sign language. The only thing that there seems to be consensus on in the Deaf community is that the potential damage done by said implants is significant enough that parents may want to very seriously consider holding off on them until the child is old enough to have a well-formed opinion on the matter of their own body. Instead, parents should go take a damn ASL class. Learning ASL is very easy, and carries far less risk than does putting a freaking cyborg robot ear inside the head of a child. Brain surgery is risky, nothing will change that, and it isn't responsible for a parent to risk their child's life because they are lazy. If I wanted a baby boy, but got a baby girl instead, would it be ethical for me to have surgery done that converts his penis into a vagina? No. Cochlear implants are not significantly different, *if* one does not view lack of hearing as a "disability" - and most culturally Deaf people do not.

Question: Christians- Why is talking about my culture such a bad thing? I am Deaf. I chose to be Deaf. I was offered a cochlear implant, was a prime candidate, but I would've been the only person in my immediate family to be hearing. So I refused to go through the procedure. I don't understand why I didn't have a choice in being Deaf. I 100% chose to be. So why does this mean that I'm making fun of others who are Deaf? I ask- why is my choice not a choice, but my best male friend who has always preferred men, chose? Martha's Vineyard... look it up? "Deaf" isn't a lifestyle, homosexuality is!- Really? So my use of ASL, going to Deaf theatre, choosing to hang out with my Deaf friends isn't a lifestyle? "Deaf" isn't a sin, homosexuality is! Why? God didn't want to make me Deaf, Normal Christians are hearing, so I"m sinning, right? "Deaf" isn't something you can abstain from, homosexuality is! Cochlear Implants. All I'm saying. Because being Deaf is a culture.

Answer: Having a hearing impairment isn't a cultural thing. Unless the majority of people in your neighbourhood also have hearing difficulties.