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The cochlear question : As the hearing parent of a deaf baby, I’m confronted with an agonising decision: should I give her an implant to help her hear?
by Abi Stephenson
I knew my daughter could hear: not just because she loved music, but because she had perfect rhythm. She punched her fists in the air like a human metronome, and brought a doughy heel to the ground precisely on each down beat. I had thrown off the yoke of milestone-tracking months earlier, having become fixated on her inability to roll during the precise developmental week for rolling. So when she didn’t form consonants at the prescribed time, I made a deliberate choice to ignore it. It didn’t occur to me that deafness might not be an either/or binary, and that certain vibrations and pitches – the down beat of a Wiggles song, say – could be apprehended, while other subtle speech sounds might be snatched out of a sentence. So it was a couple of months after her first birthday when we discovered our Botticellian baby had mild hearing loss, and two years after that when she lost almost all of her remaining hearing entirely.
Yes she should give her the cochlear implants if there is no risk to life or severe risk to quality of life and you can afford it
A baby is still developing their brain and sounds play a big part in that
Edit: typos
It’s not even a question. Who could possibly think their child is better off deaf?
Imagine growing up and finding out your parents choose to deprive you of one of your senses.
There are deaf people who see implants as erasing them and feel that deaf children should be accommodated, not “fixed.”
I don’t agree with them, hearing has clear advantages over not hearing, and one can always turn off their implants if they’d like to not hear for a while.
There are deaf people who see implants as erasing them and feel that deaf children should be accommodated, not “fixed.”
I actually have a child with a congenital genetic defect, if I could fix her genetic anomaly I’d so do in a heartbeat. Yes, it would probably change her, but her quality of life would be incomparabley better.
Anything else is fucking child abuse in my opinion.
Totally agree. I wear glasses and would get glasses for my kid if they needed them. Same thing.
Yeah absolutely
And what are the ethics of withholding when that technology has safety implications, and could enable the deaf child-then-adult to apprehend dangers to themselves or others? Footsteps in the dark, a window breaking, a car approaching on a quiet street, a fire alarm, a scream in the shopping centre, a baby crying in the next room – none would be audible to my daughter without an implant.
And from a feminist perspective she might need, as women always have done, a loud voice to shout, or to argue with her healthcare providers, or to advocate for herself in an emergency. The implant would provide her with a clearer pathway to power and impact in the world, and to positions of influence where she will be underrepresented both as a woman, and as a deaf person.
She writes well and nailed to understand what the cochlear implant is able to do.
Our neighbourhood pear tree is just beginning to rouse itself after winter, and my little girl has been emerging too – into a Jamesian ‘blooming, buzzing confusion’ of new sounds that were beyond the reach of her hearing aids. Yesterday she heard the tiniest, most pitiful bird chirp, and told me so excitedly, with a strong, clear voice. On a windy day she stopped, wide-eyed and said: ‘I hear the leaves rustling with my coch-le-ah!’ with all the triumph she saves for brandishing found treasures on walks.
We hold a both/and view here too, and also celebrate the magic of her ‘quiet ears’ and the unique perspective they afford her. When she removes her processor before sleep, it’s clear she’s relieved to submerge into calm again. But she holds the dialectical promise of both silence and sound at once – this time literally, insisting on holding her processor tightly in her palm while she falls asleep. In this way she stands pragmatically astride both worlds. In silence, but with a hearing key right at hand; ready to unlock the blooming, buzzing cacophony of the world whenever she chooses.
It’s beautiful 🥹
It really is ! Thanks for sharing 🥰
I’m confused what the question is?
There exists a zealous group in the deaf community that try to say implants are wrong. In the hearing community, some would call making this decision for another “ableist”.
Granted: nobody questions glasses for the near sighted.
I wear glassses, I can’t nearly fathom my life if my parents decided that I shouldn’t see because that’s “ableist”. I also have autism, if I didn’t go to a special needs school because of ablism I would be in a much worse position.
I don’t make up the news, I just report it.
Back to you in the studio Steve
Seems like there is a difference between able (as in, able to hear someone yelling at you not to accidentally walk into traffic) and ableist (reducing representation and accommodation for those where implants don’t work)
(I know this isn’t your fight)
Well that’s not an easy decision. And i know plenty deaf people that doesn’t need a cochlear implant. They are happy without it.
