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How Cochlear Implants Are Being Blamed For Killing Deaf Culture
First time accepted submitter Maddie Kahn (3542515) writes "Deaf culture has its own language, its own social norms, its own art forms, its own theater. But it's under threat. Why? Because most parents of deaf children now choose to use technology to help their kids hear. This piece explores why a revolutionary technology stands accused of killing a culture."
I mean seriously. There is no down side to going from not hearing to hearing except for having to listen to contemporary "music".
What a BS reason to get angsty. Technology has enabled clidren to hear so a new generation can NOT have the problems of being deaf. Rejoice that children dont need to be deaf, rather than mourn the disappearing kludges they had to do.
What a travesty! We can't allow deaf people to hear! It will destroy their culture!
Why don't you tell this woman you want her to be deaf again and see what she says:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I'd like to see deaf culture go away because there are no more deaf people.
Also:
I'd like to see paraplegic culture go away, blind culture, Amputee culture, and furries culture. That last one may be tricky
I wonder how many people were angry and vaccine destroying the polio culture?
Yes I did.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
And yes, they were adamantly supportive of the view that "for many Deaf people, every implanted child is a person stolen from their culture." But, keeping in mind that "More than 90 percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents", they are effectively laying claim to other people's children.
Look what happened to polio culture. Not cool, man. Not cool.
Cars killed horse culture.
Airplanes killed passenger rail culture.
Woman's rights killed (harmed) misogynistic culture.
The civil war killed slave culture.
The Internet killed letter-mailing culture.
Seriously, what the fuck is the point of this?
For fear of being modded down into oblivion, I'll post anonymously.
"The very existence of cochlear implants wrongly presupposes that a deaf person is in need of fixing."
This just smacks of self-conscious defensiveness. It is wrong.
The very existence of cochlear implants presupposes that some people who cannot hear may want to hear - much in the same way that the very existence of prosthetic limbs presupposes that some people may wish to use [some limb]. Even better, the very existence of wheel chairs presupposes that the paralyzed may wish to move around from point A to point B.
There is no presupposition of defectiveness in any of those products, only the presupposition that someone may wish to add new functionality to their life. If eye-implants that enable me to see in UV or IR come available, I'll jump! Not because I think I am defective, but because I think it'd be nice to enhance what I am already capable of.
A friend of mine is an interpreter, and she has expressed many of the same concerns -- but I'd be interested in seeing numbers regarding how many in the deaf community are getting the implants. If there's already a stigma in the subculture against them, I can't imagine that this technology really poses a significant threat to the subculture.
I will get down modded for this, but how about a testimony from a actual user of a cochlear implant (Rush Limbaugh in this case).
CALLER: Hey. I'm just wondering, when you listen to music with your hearing aid, how's it sound?
RUSH: Music?
CALLER: Yeah, like if you're listening to music on an iPad or something?
RUSH: Well, not very good. I cannot listen to music that I've never heard before and identify the melody.
CALLER: Oh.
RUSH: I have a cochlear implant. It doesn't have nearly the sensitivity of the human ear, it's not even close.
CALLER: I was just wondering.
RUSH: Like violins or strings sound like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
CALLER: Oh, well, I was just wondering.
RUSH:What I have to do, I can still listen to music, but it has to be music that I knew and that I've heard before I lost my hearing. And what happens is that my brain, fertile mind, provides the melody. I actually am not hearing the melody, and the way I can prove this to you, sometimes it will take me, even a song that I know, it will take me 30 seconds to identify it if I don't know what it is. Now, if I'm playing a song off iTunes and the title is there and it starts then I can spot it from the middle, but if I'm listening to a song from the beginning, and I don't know what it is, it sometimes can take me 30 seconds to recognize it, if I knew it before. But the quality of music that I hear is less than AM radio, in terms of fidelity. I can turn the bass up on an amplifier and I don't hear any difference at all. I can feel the floor vibrate, but I don't hear any more bass. I can turn highs up and I can hear the difference in the highs, but on the low end I actually cannot -- (interruption) I'm getting a note here that says: "You're not missing anything. There aren't any melodies in music today." (laughing) At any rate, you adapt to it. I've adapted.
The worst part of my hearing is being in a crowd. Like right now, I hear myself as well as I heard myself when I could hear. If I'm talking to one other person in a quiet room I can comprehend 90-95% of what they say depending on how fast they're speaking. There are some words that sound alike. But you add room noise, like if Kathryn and I are watching TV and she wants to talk to me about what we're watching, I have to hit pause or the mute 'cause I cannot hear what she's saying. Even if she's sitting two feet away I will not hear as long as there are other noises there. Any room noise when added to other room noise is gonna be louder than the one voice that I'm trying to hear. I've got the implant on my left side so if we go out in a public place, anybody on my right side, it's hopeless. I'll have to literally turn to them, and sometimes as I turn to them they turn with me. They don't know what I'm doing so we'll do pirouettes 'til I finally say, "No, you stay where you are. I'm trying to position my ear so I can hear you."
The way I look at this, though, because when I tell these stories, "Oh, that's really horrible." No, it's not. 'Cause if you look at the timeline of humanity, however long it is, 10,000 years, a million, billion, whatever the number is, my little time on it is not much larger than a grain of sand. And yet I happen to lose my hearing at the same time technology had evolved to the point where cochlear implants had been invented. If I had lost my hearing 15 years ago, it would have meant the end of my career. I would not have been able to hear. And the doctor said you might think that you could speak normally just by virtue of memory and feel, the way voice feels when you speak, but eventually your speech would deteriorate, and it would sound to people as though you had a speech defect. It would just be automatic no matter how good you are, no matter how professional you are at it. So that's really fortunate. It's almost miraculous that my being afflicted with this autoimmune disease happens to coincide with technology. Some call it divine intervention. Some call it the age of miracles. We're all one way or anot
Got to hand it to your for fingering out a way to go out on a limb and elbow your way in with that gag, buddy.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Back in the days of race-based "red-lining" and "Whites-only" legally-enforced racially-segregated neighborhoods, rich and middle-class African-Americans had to live in the "non-white" part of town, along with the poor African-Americans and other non-Whites.
Once the zoning laws, deed restrictions, and race-based morgtage- and homeowners-insurance redlining disappeared, non-Whites had as much choice as white people when it came to where they wanted live. Money or lack of it still limited their choices, but their skin color was no longer a barrier.
Now, middle-class African-Americans who move into a city are likely to move into a "middle class" neighborhood, not a "Black" neighborhood.
We went from a society that had a more distinct "Black middle class" that was created out of racial discrimination into one where if there is a "Black middle class" that's distinct from a "Middle class" the distinction is much weaker than it once was, but where there is no legally-enforced racial discrimination and much less (and someday soon I hope, no) racial discrimination denying African-Americans and other non-Whites the same rights and opportunities enjoyed by White people.
I for one don't want to undo the last 50 years of racial desegregation just to bring back the distinct "Black middle class."
Likewise, I don't think we should deny today's children the ability to hear - albeit in a limited way - just to preserve "Deaf culture."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Maybe, for me, this is more about "minority culture" in general than "deaf culture" in particular. "Deaf Culture" is an adaptation for people who can't hear. Once you can hear, you no longer need the social adaptation.
I'm a member of a minority. For those of you who don't know, I'm black. At one time, black people were denied access to educational opportunities an that in turn lead to fewer career prospects. My parents and grandparents worked very, VERY hard to give me opportunities and I took advantage of them. I finished high school. I attended college. I earned a Master of Science degree. Consequently, I have a pretty good job. I've been accused of turning my back on "African American culture" because I speak like I paid attention in school. I don't use the "What up dawgg?" vernacular that some other people (who happen to look kind of like me) do. I have been accused of having "forgotten where you came from", as if I didn't come from a middle-income, racially diverse suburb.
Once we were no longer denied access to quality education, it was no longer necessary to speak AAVE (African American Vernacular English) or "Ebonics" that some people like to call it. We were able to learn standard American English and it benefits one to do so.
I understand the desire for deaf people to adopt the mantra "There's nothing 'wrong' with the way we are." but in reality there is. You can't hear!
I'm sorry if people take it personally that their social adaptation is becoming less necessary for future generations. I'm sorry that they feel lonely or abandoned. This is a good thing. This is progress. This means that fewer people will have to live with the handicap(sorry for the loaded term) of not being able to hear.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Close, but there's a more powerful factor than feeling "special/different/unique/etc." Money. The vast majority of the Deaf Culture advocates come from the ASL-oriented* state schools for the deaf and universities like Gallaudet. There is a very cozy relationship between the state schools and the state early intervention specialists who visit parents with informational materials. Most of these people are basically recruiters for the ASL state schools who downplay cochlear implants and related educational pathways. If the parents instead chose a cochlear implant and a (usually) private school that specializes in teaching their kid to speak and listen, then the ASL state school has one less student, less money, etc. This is big money in some states. Just drive past the local school and look at their grounds, buildings, and vehicles. My local ASL-oriented state school has a coach bus that rivals most sports teams.
Now, look at the stats. Numerous longitudinal, NIH-funded studies show that kids who get implants early enough to take advantage of the language development window (before 5 years old, and preferably before 1 or 2) and receive intensive speech and listening instruction are mostly mainstreamed into regular classrooms by the K-2 range. This has a secondary effect since mainstreaming into regular schools at this age is one of the strongest indicators of literacy in deaf kids, regardless of communication method. As we all know, literacy impacts employment and independence. (Side note, Gallaudet almost lost accreditation due to poor student literacy.) Unfortunately, many ASL kids end up in the ASL state schools and generally have poor literacy when they graduate 13 years later. Remember, ASL is not English and has a completely different linguistic structure.
The second major stat is that 90% of the kids are born to hearing parents. Aside from the better life outcomes, forcing deaf kids into ASL schools to learn a language and culture differing from their parents essentially removes parental choice from the equation. As a parent, this is seriously messed up. I should have the right, and access to information, that will allow me to raise my kid with my language and culture if I wish. This isn't an immigrant language issue either since I grew up in my society's culture and a native speaker of my society's predominant language.
I have deep knowledge of this, both personally and from a scientific perspective. So why am I posting anon? There are Deaf Culture advocates who are particularly nasty. I have a friend who received death threats at home and wears a flack jacket in certain venues. People find their windshields greased, tires deflated, etc. Proud parents who post videos of they child's cochlear implant activations and progress on YouTube are targeted, insulted, and told they are horrible parents. Extremists pretend to be academics and reporters, but then twist interviews out of context on blog posts. The list goes on.
Again: it comes down to money and parental choice.
* Some state schools claim to be Bi-Bi or Total Communication. This is just propaganda. These are basically ASL instruction with token instruction in lipreading, cochlear implant use, and speaking. Imagine trying to learn to speak or listen with only a couple hours of instruction each week from instructors who are not experts in the topic.