In the past several years, I have heard about the usage and implementation of cochlear implants to “correct” a deaf person’s deafness. With such a phrasing, a debate encompassing the categorization of being deaf as a disability has arisen, along with deaf individuals' decision to accept, or to reject such hearing restoration. Some people say being deaf is a disability. Others say that it is not. After reading several articles on the history of deaf individuals (which I have listed below), I would like to chime in my own opinions and thoughts towards this subject.
To provide some context, after the civil war, educational reformers attempted to eliminate the use of “manualism”, the use of sing language. These reforms wanted to replace “manualism” with oralism”, the exclusive use of speech and lipreading, as they believed that sign language set deaf people apart from society and the use of sign language was detrimental for deaf individual’s speech development. It seemed to be a battle between the usage of sign language and speech. However, in today's age, the battle between sign language and speech has changed. The issues I have read about arises not so much from the usage of sign language, but rather an actual process and the reasoning behind the implementation of hearing restoration as well as the misinformation regarding cochlear implants. Based off of the encounters that I’ve read, individuals that seek hearing restoration often find that medical professions want to use cochlear implants and other forms of hearing restoration as a way to normalize the lifestyle of deaf individuals rather than for language access. From this approach, I do not believe in the usage of hearing restoration to be just. Although the language may be an original source of culture and community development, other habits such as holidays, social norms, and identity are also part of the culture. Through the generalization of deaf language as a disability that needs to be fixed, the entire deaf culture is criticized.
Also, it seems to meet that there is a large disparity between misinformation and credible knowledge regarding hearing restoration, especially with cochlear implants. But in fact, cochlear implants are not a total miracle for deafness as, in order to be eligible, an individual’s deafness needs to originate from a defective cochlea. These implants bypass this defective spiral structure within the inner ear to send sound as electrical pulses to the auditory nerve; however, users of these implements do not come with language pre-programmed so they have to go through auditory-verbal training to translate these signals into speech and sound. Regardless of the cochlear implant’s abilities, these cochlear implants do not correct conductive hearing loss, replace dysfunctional auditory nerves nor aid with central auditory processing disorders.
I think the usage of a cochlear implant should be to aid a deaf individual, not fix them. By living in a binary system that states a deaf individual must choose between the use of sign language or to receive hearing restoration, I think the desire for deaf individuals to seek hearing restoration treatments to be mitigated. I believe that a more holistic approach needs to be practiced so that the deaf culture is not disregarded. In a sense, there should be bimodal bilingualism meaning that sign language is still practiced while living with sound.
https://gallaudet.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/institution/Deaf%20Eyes%20Exhibit/Language-01oraledu.htm
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/opinion/deaf-cochlear-implants-sign-language.html
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