Not having a deaf child, or anyone in the family with deafness, I'm not sure I can fully grasp or appreciate how it would affect our lives...

As parents, we want to give our children every advantage to succeed in life... I think if I did know my child was going to be deaf, before they were born... I'd want to do anything medically possible, that was safe, to help my child become an accepted and happy member of society.

When I was a youngster, we had a neighbor who was deaf... I know it was many years ago, but I still remember how much of an "outsider" she was considered... she had a hearing aid, used sign language, and she went to a different school... but she wasn't an accepted part of the "neighborhood click"... I wouldn't want my child to have to experience that. At the time, of course, there were few alternatives.

Then again... as parents, we accept our children for who they are... if my child were born deaf, it wouldn't really be that abnormal, within our household... as a family, you deal with situations as they happen.

Good questions...

jodik has it right,

"...accept our children for who they are..."

One summer in college I took a summer school course taught by a deaf history professor. Normally, throughtout the school year he taught at Gallaudet. In the summer, though, he preferred to teach at "hearing" schools. He stated that "hearing" students had a much better grasp/understanding of history than non-hearing students. Why? Because we hear snippets of this and that on TV, the radio, other conversations,etc. Non-hearing students only "hear" what the interpreters can interpret and they have to be paying attention and/or actually read. His take on this was that hearing people just have more info coming in, which makes sense.

An interesting side note, this professor would get really upset with us when we didn't look at him directly when speaking, as he read lips. After a couple of classes with him, I remarked that it was considered rude if a hearing person didn't directly address a fellow student by looking at them when debating an issue. As a non-hearing person, he didn't understand the nonverbal communications of hearing people. He thought we were intentionally being rude by not looking at him when we answered/debated questions posed by fellow students, when that was far from true.

I got more than a history class that summer. It was a real eye opener to say the least. That said, and I can appreciate the fact that the deaf like their "world", I would go for the implants. If for no other reason then the nonverbal communication is different. We all know, nonverbal communication is the most important communication.

This professor also enlightened us as to how deaf people perceive hearing people and how they look down on those with cochlear implants. It's fine to say "let's accept our children for who they are" but if they go through life thinking they aren't really missing important information...and refuse to acknowledge such.

It was 20 years ago I had this professor and I still feel he taught me a whole lot more than history.

Laura

That's a great story, Laura... it's wonderful that you came away with a greater understanding.

I think a lot more groups than just the deaf live their lives from within their "bubble", shunning the "outside world"... not realizing that they're cutting themselves off from learning or participating in some wonderful and interesting parts of life. Perhaps they think their way is better, or they're afraid to accept new information or change... I don't know...

I think it's important to open ourselves up to new ideas, to look at the larger picture of life, so to speak... you just never know what might result.

Even though I certainly accept my children as is, regardless... I'd still want to give them every advantage to live a normal, happy and productive life... I think I'd want them to hear, as well as medical science can allow that to happen.

Thanks for sharing, everyone. Laura - that is a great story.

Jodik - I think the main reason isn't a shunning of the hearing world, but rather a fear for the end of their own community. With a decrease in ASL usage, it is akin to a language dying, with the loss of all the art, poetry and 'music' (so to speak) associated with it. While language re-introduction has been partially successful in some native communities here in Canada (just to name an example), ASL would be difficult to implement to a hearing population, and thus it uniquely requires a deaf community to propagate it's survival. While I do agree that having an open mind is necessary, I believe the issue here is that there is a genuine concern for preserving individuality and identity.

Furthermore, another aspect I recently became aware of is that deaf parents who have a deaf child may feel that giving their child the power of hearing would isolate her from themselves.

That said, you're right - there are a lot of things in the hearing world that would be denied to a deaf person - how is it ethical to make that choice for a child? (As they say - not making a choice is a choice in and of itself) And as you say - change is inevitable. Communities evolve, and cultures change and die as time passes. Maybe this is the destined course by which this community slowly fades away.

I've never spent too much time thinking about this, but here are a few thoughts:

Calvin - I think homosexuality is a whole other animal. It really can't be brought into a discussion about hearing vs. non-hearing. Sexuality brings up all those other tough issues like morality, religion, ethics etc. A non-functioning sensory organ isn't the same. I know you really weren't comparing the two, but I would hate for people to think you were.

Is the same debate going on in the visually impaired community or with people who lack a sense of smell or taste? If there were a way to correct any of these, would there be people saying "NO, we like the way we are." or "NO, we want our child to stay the way he/she is."? I have my doubts, but maybe I'm wrong. Why should cochlear implants be any more controversial?

Kev - I did mean to draw the parallel to bring attention to the entire idea of normal vs abnormal. I am by no means insinuating that homosexuality is a debilitating syndrome or disability in any way - maybe if I explain a little more of where I'm coming from...

A friend of mine in medical school in a more conservative country recently contacted me about a group project she was doing. One of her fellow students proposed looking at the 'problem' of homosexuality. The same partner has a father who was a psychiatrist, and one of his common practices was to 'treat' homosexuality. His patients commonly had chronic depression, and other psychological issues, and as such, their abberant sexuality was viewed to be the abnormality that needed to be cured in order for the patients to resume their function as productive members of society. My friend was hesitant to accept this project choice. I thought it was an interesting situation, because one could very easily view this situation as being two sided. Is the abnormal sexuality of the individual at fault for the societal-pressure induced depression? Indeed, if these individuals became heterosexual, their depression and personal problems would go away as well...so then is homosexuality a disability? Or is society at fault for their lack of acceptance? We see that in the west, homosexuals can be very functional members of society...suggesting that a more accepting and diversified society would be a good alternative. As blind activist Soner Coban said: "A disability is not the shortcoming or malfunctioning of an organ. It is actually the conventions and misperceptions in society that create barriers rendering the world inaccessible to us in many respects." While I don't agree with this fully (blindness and deafness disables an individual to some extent no matter how you look at it), it is an enlightening thought.

I agree that there are a whole lot of other factors to consider, with religion etc...but ultimately I feel that it boils down to the same central questions - when does a distinction become such that it warrants artificial interference/'treatment', and when is it viewed simply as an acceptable difference? I guess this does step into the whole debate of eugenics, but I see cochlear implants as just one step behind that.

You bring up good points about other impairments, and that will definitely require some thinking. To be honest, the first reaction I had when I heard of people opposing the implants was the same as yours - why would anyone who was deaf or blind not want to fix their impairment? How selfish those parents must be to deny their children treatment simply because they want their child to be a part of their world. Where's the controversy? What are people thinking?

But then I started thinking - the controversy of this issue seems to be linked with the number of people in the deaf community, and perhaps more importantly, the existence of this community. If, say, prior to the invention of these implants, not 2/1000 but half of the human population was naturally deaf...we would have a whole world of people that used a different way of communicating, complete with their own language, culture, art, theater etc. If, suddenly, these implants came into being, I can definitely see some controversy surrounding their implementation.

I make this exaggeration only to illustrate how these implants are controversial (you can extend this example to anything, blindness etc...) and not to justify for or against their usage. It is the existence of a functioning and very much alive community that complicates this situation. Here we have a community that is threatened by a medical advancement, a situation that has never before occurred in human history. How do you balance the ethics on this one?

PS - sorry for the rant everyone!! Kev you got me thinking about other disabilities and I found this article (from which I got the above quote): The Blind Community Needs a '60's-style' Revolution,' Says Blind Activist. It's kind of hard for me as a seeing, hearing person with no real disabilities to understand completely what he's trying to say - but some of it makes sense to me.

My daughter who works for a Charity told me the same thing about deaf culture and Cochlear implants. At first i thought incredible but then it started to make sense for the reasons stated in the posts above.

She can sign, I think the language is Auslan or something like that, but. of course, slightly different from the American Version.

As a hearing parent, I would want my child to experience life with ALL senses intact, if possible... I think that's a normal reaction, for someone who hears.

As a deaf parent, I would feel I was being selfish if I didn't give my child the opportunity to experience life as I never had the chance to. To deny my child the chance to hear the world as everyone else does... I just don't think I could deny them that... especially since most humans are born with the ability to hear, being one of the 5 senses. It would be different if hearing were an option, and not something most are already born with. As a parent, deaf or not, the idea is to give our children the opportunities we never had... to help make their lives better than ours were, if we can.

I don't think a language such as signing has to die out because some will gain the ability to hear with implants... not all deaf people will be candidates for implants, would be my guess. And down the road, who's to say that implants won't be found to cause some kind of cancer, or some other type of health risk... everything these days seems to cause something!

But to deny hearing to my child because I'm afraid my culture will fall to the wayside, seems a bit selfish to me... but that's just how I feel.

I was raised Catholic... so homosexuality is not a subject I want to discuss... especially here, and especially because I have very strong feelings when it comes to certain things, as I'm sure you've all noticed. :-)

Thank you for not sharing.

Brooke

Calvin - I understand where you're coming from and I know we're both on the same page. I just needed to point out my gut reaction to seeing both homosexuality and deafness in the same discussion. That must be some conservative country your friend is living in.

jodik - I agree with everything you said. Those could have been my words too. And yes, let's not discuss homosexuality. I am NOT a Catholic and also have very strong views on the subject.

Brooke - You crack me up sometimes.

K

Kevin. one of my favourite characters (out of the many) on the wire was Snoop.
Where else but on the wire would you find someone playing themselves.

Anyway, i love the wire, just something wonderful in your wonderful/hopeless country. Lol., and perhaps Snoop is a spoke in the wheel of the eye for an eye, throw away the key brigade.

Council elections in a week or two and after watching series five of the wire, i do not feel like voting for anyone. Even though i will risk a fine if i do not vote.

Sorry, wrong thread, multi tasking.

I'm very tempted to share another opinion right now... but it's not worth the effort.

I have heard that induction loop hearing systems is the best

Here is a link that might be useful: Induction loop

I don't know why I'm just now finding this thread, but I am. I have to say that I glad that the sight impaired community doesn't have the same kind of issue. I'm not legally blind but I know without my eye prescription I'm pretty damn close. I'm right on the border when I don't have glasses/contacts. I can see just enough to hurt myself pretty bad, but not see it coming. I'm around a -11 in both my eyes. My biggest fear would be some catastrophe in my house and I wouldn't be able to find my glasses. I wouldn't be able to help any of my children or animals. And yes I've thought about Lasek vision repair, no they would have to do implant surgery. So I'm kind of stuck. Half blind and can't afford to fix it permanently. I was about 4-5 when I got my first glasses. I was stunned that the world looked the way it did when I finally saw it the way it really was. I know I would have been given other tools so that I would have been able to deal with life better; that is without glasses. But there is still sooo much that I would not have been able to do. There is so much that I do with my hands like art and embroidery,you really can't do that for long periods of time when you have to hold it 2 inches away from your nose to see it. Wow! I know that deafness and blindness are strangely both so close and so far away. But good Lord don't you need to give your child every possible advantage that you can? (I didn't say give them everything,just every advantage. A lot of times depriving them gives them that advantage as well.) ginnibug

Sorry to go off on a tangent but I've always been rather honked off about being so vision impaired.