Cochlear Implants

According to the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), 1 in 20 Americans

are deaf or have trouble hearing. To help deaf people communicate, sign language was created as

another language that can be used with hands instead of voice. From there, people were able to

start reading mouths and experiments were created to create hearing devices.

One of the infamous devices that was made to give deaf people a new chance at hearing

was the cochlear implants. They are surgically implanted devices that provide a person with

moderate to profound hearing loss a modified sense of sound. Most people in the deaf world do

not consider themselves with a disability. That of course is okay because at the end of the day it

is acceptance of who they are. The cochlear implant was made not to force people to use it but to

give them a chance or a choice to use technology to help them listen.

I see a cochlear implant as a choice. No one is forced to use it but it is there if one needs

it. When it comes to children, like most surgical procedures, it is based on the parents’ decision. I

believe when a child turns 18, they have the mindset to decide if they want cochlear implants if

their parents were against it before.

Technology is created for a reason. A big pro to the technology era that we live in is that

there are so many tools and devices to help us. A cochlear implant is a choice made by a person

that has difficult time hearing and would love to be able to get some sense of hearing rather than

none. Being deaf and the choices you make whether you want to accept it and keep being deaf or

choose technology to help you is your choice, not the deaf community’s choice.