How do cochlear implants and effect acceptance into the Deaf culture?

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averyc

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I am a hearing student from Skyview Highschool and I am doing a research project about cochlear implants. Along with learning about the science I was hoping to learn about the culutural side of it as well. I am hoping to hear from both people who have gotten the implants, and those who have decided not to. If you have the implants, how has it effected your acceptence into the Deaf world, and if you decided against the implants, how do you feel about people who did get the surgery. It seems there are many strong opinions on the subject so as many personal opinions as I can get would be great :) Thanks!-- Avery
 
I am profoundly deaf, but grew up HOH. I was mainstreamed (put with hearing kids) all through my school years. I will be attending a mainstream college this fall. I never knew what deaf culture was until last year when I was 17, and I lost my hearing at 3. I knew some deaf kids through a field trip that my public school spec. ed teacher brought me on once... but thats the most experience I have there. I felt comfortable but not like i fit in because I didn't know ASL. They didn't shun me or treat me rudely at all... But I haven't met any deaf people since my CIs, but I know through this board that CI'ee's are not welcomed by every culturally deaf person.
 
The Sound and the Fury

You should rent "The Sound and the Fury" to kind of gain an understanding for deaf culture's reluctance about cochlear implants. However, the documentary focused on only certain deaf communities- so it doesnt mean all deaf people don't like others with CI. Really, its all political.
I was HOH since I was two years old, but I did really well with hearing aids. I was mainstreamed since I was 6 years old. But when I was 17 I lost all of my hearing pretty much overnight- i couldn't hear at all with my hearing aids. I recieved a CI 5 months later. I wanted to become closer to the deaf culture but a few people told me that with the CI that I would no longer be widely accepted in some deaf cultures. But I am starting to think that notion is really a stereotype. I had met a few deaf people here in college who were more curious about it, rather than judgemental.
Still rent the documentary. But only consider it as a reference.
 
I was born moderately almost mild hard of hearing, mainstreamed with deaf program and signing teacher for the deaf, signed SEE (sign exact english) with speech therapy and at age 8 my parents pulled me out of speech therapy for no reason I was doing really good but oh well, then in middle school I learned to sign ASL I picked it up quickly and I was part of deaf community, culture and everything but I was also part of hearing world too made a lot friends no problem and it was like that till 16 I moved and mainstreamed with only poorly qualified interpreter in hearing class I fit in wonderfully and one girl befriend with me but she was evil, she spreaded million awful rumor made me totally unpopular and isolated so bad that kid throw food and rock at me, even few teacher doesn't like me so I dropped out middle of junior year, got ged and at age 17-18-ish I don't remmeber I suddenly lost entire of my hearing literally overnight. But I was in extreme denial and denied the loss for pretty long time with few hearing test and last one was in may of 2007 I finally become shocked and said "no way, but its possible" so I went home push fire alarm, makes loud noise and I hear nothing so I got CI and my friends I grew up with totally ditched me and few of them lashed out on me for having CI and some of them would block me or say "bye" when I said hi and I'm afraid to go to any of deaf events since my CI surgery so I didn't show up to any of them yet so its hard but I'm happy I got CI because I can hear so much and better too and I'm happy with my fiance and life's good. I'm coming to the conclusion with "who care about other people only my and my loved one's opinion matter" idea so...

Sorry I didn't realized my reply is soooo long till I re-read it!!!
 
Not that there's not discrimination, but generally CIs are getting to be a lot more accepted overall. Sound and Fury is getting to be kind of outdated. NAD is OK with CIs now. Heck, someone told me once that Deafies were against HEARING AIDS when they first came out! It's gonna be the same way with CIs......and I mean I remember when virtually every message abt CIs on forums like these, was anti CI.
Give it time.........
 
I read the last few posts in here. It is all about whether the deaf population is accepting of people with CI or not. How about the hearing people's acception of the deaf population? Look at the history. The hearing people are not being too nice about deaf people. Look at the history of eugenic and how they sterilized any people they consider to be inferior, including deaf people. Nowadays, the knife moved up higher (CI). No wonder, some deaf people are upset about this. It is like the hearing people shouting at the world that their child is not deaf as he/she can hear with CI. It is like they are in denial that their child is deaf and they are most likely refuse to learn sign language. What if the CI failed down the road? What if the child's body reject the implant later on. What if the child develop infection and the CI has to be removed for the infection to go away? What if the child only can hear environment sounds and not able to understand words on hearing? If so, what happened to the child's language development? They need sign language eventhough they have a CI as the Sign language is a back-up language. In reverse, my spoken language is my back-up language to my ASL. The hearing people, especially my family refused to learn sign language. What if they lose their hearing? It is like they are demanding that we adopt their way and forsake our own culture. It is like they are saying "Me, Me, Me!".

At my oral school when I was little, they divided the kids into who can speak good and who can't speak good. Those who can't speak good get lousy education compare to the ones who can speak good. This is not so good to those who can't speak good. Jobwise, some of us have a hard time getting a good job/getting promotion. They refuse to promote us if we already have a job. They refuse to put us in where we want to be in - like computer operating instead of computer programming. You know, more menial jobs than professional jobs where there is no chance of promotion. They refuse to learn sign language. After all that, they turned around and complained that we are being a burden to them (actually they are being a burden to us). They ignored the fact that they pushed us into this stituation. They ignored the fact that we need sign language like we need air to breathe after they imposed the oral method on the deaf schools (Just look at Martha's Vineyard time when everybody know sign language and the richest man at that time happened to be deaf).

With all that double standards, give me a good reason why should we respect those who disrespect us historically. I know now why I don't want CI is because of all that deaf history. I just refuse to bow down to what they perceived to be their superiority.

Somebody need to do the research on the hearing people to find out why they have the compulsion to attempt to change the deaf people into hearing people. They need to find out why they ignore what really works for the deaf people and go for things that work against the deaf people. If the hearing people think they are smarter than us, then they should learn sign language - especially ASL.
 
In the MD Deaf community, there are many CI users who are fluent in ASL and fit just right in just fine.
 
Buffalo said:
I read the last few posts in here. It is all about whether the deaf population is accepting of people with CI or not. How about the hearing people's acception of the deaf population? Look at the history. The hearing people are not being too nice about deaf people. Look at the history of eugenic and how they sterilized any people they consider to be inferior, including deaf people. Nowadays, the knife moved up higher (CI). No wonder, some deaf people are upset about this. It is like the hearing people shouting at the world that their child is not deaf as he/she can hear with CI. It is like they are in denial that their child is deaf and they are most likely refuse to learn sign language. What if the CI failed down the road? What if the child's body reject the implant later on. What if the child develop infection and the CI has to be removed for the infection to go away? What if the child only can hear environment sounds and not able to understand words on hearing? If so, what happened to the child's language development? They need sign language eventhough they have a CI as the Sign language is a back-up language. In reverse, my spoken language is my back-up language to my ASL. The hearing people, especially my family refused to learn sign language. What if they lose their hearing? It is like they are demanding that we adopt their way and forsake our own culture. It is like they are saying "Me, Me, Me!".

At my oral school when I was little, they divided the kids into who can speak good and who can't speak good. Those who can't speak good get lousy education compare to the ones who can speak good. This is not so good to those who can't speak good. Jobwise, some of us have a hard time getting a good job/getting promotion. They refuse to promote us if we already have a job. They refuse to put us in where we want to be in - like computer operating instead of computer programming. You know, more menial jobs than professional jobs where there is no chance of promotion. They refuse to learn sign language. After all that, they turned around and complained that we are being a burden to them (actually they are being a burden to us). They ignored the fact that they pushed us into this stituation. They ignored the fact that we need sign language like we need air to breathe after they imposed the oral method on the deaf schools (Just look at Martha's Vineyard time when everybody know sign language and the richest man at that time happened to be deaf).

With all that double standards, give me a good reason why should we respect those who disrespect us historically. I know now why I don't want CI is because of all that deaf history. I just refuse to bow down to what they perceived to be their superiority.

Somebody need to do the research on the hearing people to find out why they have the compulsion to attempt to change the deaf people into hearing people. They need to find out why they ignore what really works for the deaf people and go for things that work against the deaf people. If the hearing people think they are smarter than us, then they should learn sign language - especially ASL.
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So you are going to blame us hearing people for everything that has gone wrong in your life.
 
jackiesolorzano said:
So you are going to blame us hearing people for everything that has gone wrong in your life.
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Why should she? And why should I? Some hearing who have done that in the past and I see history repeating itself. However, not all hearing are like that - thank goodness.
 
Buffalo said:
I read the last few posts in here. It is all about whether the deaf population is accepting of people with CI or not. How about the hearing people's acception of the deaf population?
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The question asked about how people with CI's were being treated by deaf persons without CI's, or how people who chose not to get CI's feel about those with them... and people responded in kind. averyc didn't ask "what is the history of hearing people treating deaf people poorly".
 
Drew's Dad said:
The question asked about how people with CI's were being treated by deaf persons without CI's, or how people who chose not to get CI's feel about those with them... and people responded in kind. averyc didn't ask "what is the history of hearing people treating deaf people poorly".
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True. But that history has a lot to do with some of the deaf's attitudes toward CI.
 
jackiesolorzano said:
Your thing is that all deaf people must sign, why is that can't you accept that some deaf people do not want to sign.
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I just reported u again. This has nothing to do with non signing deaf people. My god!!! U want to turn this into a bashing thread, u have done a good job of it!
 
jackiesolorzano said:
So you are going to blame us hearing people for everything that has gone wrong in your life.
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WAAA WAAA WAAAA...wasnt the hearing "experts" that told our parents not to use sign language? It wasnt deaf people that was for sure!
 
deafskeptic said:
Why should she? And why should I? Some hearing who have done that in the past and I see history repeating itself. However, not all hearing are like that - thank goodness.
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I agree with u! Hell, my hubby is hearing! I am not comfortable using spoken language only all the time because it is not natural to me but she doesnt understand that. It is MY right to choose to be in a signing environment..if some deaf people dont want to sign, I have no problem with that. Wow!
 

I have received CI at age of four and was one of the first youngest kid to receive it. I enjoy having CI and is pleased with my parents' decision. However down the road as I was growing up...there are some people out there that had hard time accepting it.

In Middle school, I met few deaf people for the first time that doesn't speak Oral and I was very interested in them. I made two friends out of four as they have accepted me, teaching me ASL and Deaf culture while other two refused to accept me just because I have CI and was Oral.

Through out my Teen years I have met more people that won't accept me just because I have CI but they're not worth of my time ifthey won't accept it. I have met more Deaf people that are accepting me because I know their culture and respect it than the ones that rejects me just because I have CI.

It was hard but it's part of life.
 
~*Kaelei*~ said:

I have received CI at age of four and was one of the first youngest kid to receive it. I enjoy having CI and is pleased with my parents' decision. However down the road as I was growing up...there are some people out there that had hard time accepting it.

In Middle school, I met few deaf people for the first time that doesn't speak Oral and I was very interested in them. I made two friends out of four as they have accepted me, teaching me ASL and Deaf culture while other two refused to accept me just because I have CI and was Oral.

Through out my Teen years I have met more people that won't accept me just because I have CI but they're not worth of my time ifthey won't accept it. I have met more Deaf people that are accepting me because I know their culture and respect it than the ones that rejects me just because I have CI.

It was hard but it's part of life.
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:gpost:

I agree with u. I grew up orally without any exposure to ASL despite having a severe prodound hearing loss in both ears. Anyways, I finally learned ASL at the age of 25 and tried to interact with the Phx Deaf community but I was rejected big time cuz I was not fluent sign language at all plus I had a reputation for acting superior to them because I can communicate with hearing people without needing assistance (or so I thought..lol). My bad ..so I moved to DC and went to Gally. Faced the same discrimination but didnt give up. Eventually I found some Deaf people who accepted me and some of those who rejected me at first are now some of my closest friends. Go figure. As for the rest, they look down on me but I dont care anymore. It is not a big deal.

BTW...I have no CIs.

I feel that I am misunderstood here on AD cuz I am against oral-only deaf ed. To some, that means I am against CIs which is not true. No biggie.
 
~*Kaelei*~ said:

I have received CI at age of four and was one of the first youngest kid to receive it. I enjoy having CI and is pleased with my parents' decision. However down the road as I was growing up...there are some people out there that had hard time accepting it.

In Middle school, I met few deaf people for the first time that doesn't speak Oral and I was very interested in them. I made two friends out of four as they have accepted me, teaching me ASL and Deaf culture while other two refused to accept me just because I have CI and was Oral.

Through out my Teen years I have met more people that won't accept me just because I have CI but they're not worth of my time ifthey won't accept it. I have met more Deaf people that are accepting me because I know their culture and respect it than the ones that rejects me just because I have CI.

It was hard but it's part of life.
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Or maybe its because you were rude to them...
(Especially me, obiously you didn't recognize me at all I used to wear red glasses recognize the comment you posted in melissa's GJ? "that girl who wore red glasses she's b*tch" I was nice to you and I tried be friend with you but you were rude to me and totally judged me before even get to know to me
also I never seen you with CI. And you sign fine, better than I do right now and I grew up using sign (it wasn't till high school when I learn to convert from SEE to asl)
 
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