Suppose you are a parent and the doctor gives you a baby that is not the perfect baby of
your dreams! He or she is deaf. How can you provide the best future for this child if you
have decided on a cochlear implant? Cochlear implants are surgically implanted devices
that provide electrical stimulation to the 8th nerve. In hearing people, if the 8th nerve is
stimulated, the nerve signals are processed through the cochlea of the inner ear hair cells.
In most profound hearing loss, cochlear hair cells were destroyed, which leads to loss of
sensitivity and frequency resolution loss. Cochlear Implants produce tiny electrical
currents that directly stimulate the auditory nerve fibers, bypassing the defective or
missing hair cells. The opinions of the value of Cochlear Implant surgery in the hearing
world and the deaf world are in stark contrast to one another. The hearing world
overwhelmingly has chosen the surgery but there is no plan to maximize the benefits of it.
The Deaf world which opposes the surgery rejects changing a deaf person by any means,
especially surgery. Cochlear Implant surgery research seems to indicate that with proper
selection and training programs for parents and children, the future involvement in society
for participants will most likely improve dramatically. Three areas will be examined as to
how a person’s life will improve dramatically with the Cochlear Implant; the areas are
Deaf culture, family interaction, and societal involvement. There are strong differing
opinions among the hearing public and the deaf community.
Who is in the deaf community? The deaf community is comprised of two distinct groups,
the Deaf culture and the deaf culture. They also approach the value of Cochlear Implant in
two opposing ways. Hossain implies “In reality, things are not as intuitive as they may
seem. The relationship between culture and technology is a complex one, and so, must be
studied extensively in order to understand the implications of any new piece of
biotechnology” (Hossain 1 par.). This causes a clear separation of opinion about whether
or not to do the surgery. Once the children socialize with Deaf people, many children
change their ideas about having the surgery. The child may choose to accept the
philosophy of deaf persons or Deaf persons. The deaf population has two ways of thinking
of the value of intervention. The “Deaf” philosophy (capital D) is that they refuse any
intervention or correction to hearing loss. Deaf culture is a group of individuals, usually
