Picking a side
Cochlear Implants:
All parents has a goal in life for their children. They want what is best for them and will do everything to make it happen. The deciding actors that parents consider to letting their child go under the cochlear implant surgery is to give their child an opportunity to live their life as a typical child in society, a desire for “normality,” access to medical advice, and the availability of insurance (4). Parents who would learn about the implants noticed the benefits that came along with the surgery.
Benefits of Cochlear Implants:
- Early implantation promotes the achievement of speaking and listening skills.
- Improved interactions with hearing peers, improved quality of life, such as social interactions and academic performance (5).
- Parents sees that this is an opportunity to repair their child’s hearing loss and hope that it will provide their child with “normal” communication situations and access to hearing the world (5).
- Parents saw the benefits of the implant more in terms of communication gains than in terms of social gains (4).
- “Opportunity for success” and gives them a sense of being “connected” to the world (5).
Father's Tattoo Tribute
This article comes to show how much parents love their children and would go through anything to make them at ease and to fit into today’s society. After having their little girl go under the cochlear implant surgery, they noticed a difference in her behaviour (6). She went form not talking to anyone to socializing with everyone. Even though her brother is wearing hearing aids and her mom has a cochlear implant. Her dad decided to shave his head and get a tattoo to make sure that she “didn’t feel like the odd one out (6).” This tattoo is a sign that shows his daughter his support for her condition. Now, she is able to do all the things that hearing children can do and is now living a typical life. This tattoo is a sign that shows his daughter his support for her condition (6).
Deaf Culture:
To fully understand the Deaf community's position on the cochlear implantation of young children, one must first look at the issue of spoken language from a Deaf perspective (Shultz, 2000).
To identify with Deaf culture is to believe that being Deaf involves much more than the absence of sound (Shultz, 2000).
Involves identification and participation with others who share a similar experience and a wide variety of interests, a common visual language, and values and goals (Shultz,2000).
Rejection of the hearing person's version of normalcy (Shultz, 2000).
Shultz (2000) study shows the following:
Deafness is a way of life, an attitude, a choice.... I made a decision to be 'deaf ... It's my choice to sign, to work within the deaf community, to socialize with deaf friends, to be deaf, to think deaf. I'm proud to be a deaf person in a world of sound so long silent to me. Deafness does not limit my potential, people do. I'll not go back to that lonely world I left, a world where I passed, sadly as 'normal' because I could talk well.... I'll no longer nod in pretended acknowledgment of hearing people's long-winded 50 mph conversation.... Why can't the hearing people let deaf adults be deaf, and stop trying to force us to conform to a hearing world, in which we will never be fully accepted? (p.263)
This really shows that with the technology of cochlear implants, it is almost as if society is taking away from their culture. Because of this, there will be fewer people in their culture.
Sound of Fury:
People with hearing inabilities regard themselves as a cultural minority. They believed they are to be respected just as any minority group. It also includes that they are able to make the decision of remain exactly how they are. This documentary explores the device that can help the deaf to hear but may also threaten the deaf culture and their bonds with each other (Aronson, 2001). Some families show their appreciation for the cure of people with hearing inabilities while others fear that it will destroy their language and their way of living life. People in the deaf culture is torn by the idea of the technology that might end deafness (Aronson, 2001).
In today’s society, there is still a strong debates between cochlear implants and the deaf culture. One perspective talks about all the benefits of cochlear implants. While the other perspective talks about taking away from the deaf culture.