Emily Howlett: Are cochlear implants child abuse, a ‘quick fix’ or a threat to Deaf identity?

I went to City Lit’s deaf day for the first time last year, I got off the train at Holborn Underground Station and following the signing people to our destination, I didn’t need to use my prepared map. I found myself walking behind 3 young women in their late teens or early 20s, all 3 had funky coloured cochlea implant processors and head-magnets and all 3 were signing to one another as they walked down the street. Every now and then they’d switch between signing and speech. They seemed confident and happy. I was envious of their signing skills and ability/option to switch but very happy for them that in this snapshot of their lives they seemed to have both options.

I’m working my way through Paddy Ladd’s book on deafhood and my understanding of what he is saying is about a bilingual and bicultural approach to deafness, deafhood and the hearing world. I can’t help but feeling varying levels of bilingualism is the hoped for outcome for everyone, so those who cannot access speech and hearing are as included as hearing people who have learned some sign because to learn sign would be normal and easy. Most of the deaf people I have met in person and online would like deaf people to be able to sign AND access hearing and speech and have good English written literacy skills.

I don’t buy the CIs are child abuse from the deaf world and I think that is changing slowly, some people might refuse to engage with a CI user, but increasingly at signing deaf events there are more and more CI users in the crowd, I can’t tell that their sign is better or worse than anyone else’s.

However there are a LOT of misconception about CIs in the hearing world. I think the rehab for a child with a CI is probably about the same hours/effort as the learning curve for BSL for a hearing parent even if they are otherwise very different.

The CI makes the parent feel in charge although Andy Palmer’s recent post about child-led habilitation and learning and language was a good reminder about using that parental control/power for good. Medics can present the CI as an answer and some are still trotting out the hateful, damaging and audist “don’t sign, it will make the CI less good” despite all the EXTENSIVE research evidence to the contrary. I’m a BAHA user and one of my audiologists went beserk when told I’d got my level 2, told me it’d ruin my hearing and speech… Funny that I found learning and using BSL (even a bit) as an adult actually improved my speech, communication skills and reception of all language! Watching my recently qualified as a ToD mum challenge this audiologist was a proud moment for me, she fought just as hard for my right to learn BSL and supported me financially to do so where she could as she had done for my right to the right kind of hearing aids, medical care and SEN support at school.

BSL makes parents feel out of control cos in the UK we don’t have a language learning culture, many of us are monoglots (only speak one language) and we get taught languages horribly, too little, too late at school. We aren’t Sweden or Finland where not only do people routinely speak 2 or 3 languages but that their government established funding/rights/infrastructure for deaf people’s parents to learn sign in an easier way than here in the UK. We need to remember, learning a new language is SCARY. Classes are expensive and not usually geared up to parents of young’uns and the Deaf community can seem terrifying and quite frankly alien and unwelcoming to the hearing parent of a deaf child.

We still need to keep fighting oppression of BSL in education, the stigma that BSL is for stupid people, that BSL is only there to pick up the pieces of hardcore-oralisms failures. We need to fight for BSL to be more easily, affordably (especially for deaf people & families) and culturally available.

While many Deaf or deaf people (I dislike D/d for many reasons) are welcoming to parents of deaf children and the deaf children themselves, some aren’t and we need to challenge that in our deaf communities – if WE want younger deaf to sign, we have to welcome their parents and siblings into that space because it is harder to learn sign in isolation or when families feel unwelcome and scared. We have to find a way to induct hearing people into the deaf communities while not letting them take over find a way of balancing that power that the hearing people have over us without reacting in an aggressive way. We need to make sure hardcore-manualism doesn’t end up turning people away entirely.

We deaf communities also need to stop being hyperbolic as I think Emily says here. There are issues with how CIs are presented, marketed, understood, but they are not in themselves evil and CI users, BAHA users, hearing aid users and those who don’t use any ‘aids’ may also still be deaf. We need to stop being as binary on the deaf side as some hearies are binary on the hearing side. We need to challenge the actual problems with CIs and BAHAs and hearing aids and hardcore-oralism and seek to change them rather than rejecting the whole concept outright which will not gain us anything.

I too would love to see some views/posts on the chicken *waves at the long suffering editor being pecked constantly* from people who have CIs implanted at different ages in their life. The experience of adult deafened people using CIs is very different from the deaf or deafened in childhood folks who get a CI either when very young or even that of a person deaf since childhood who gets CIs in adulthood. I would love to see some of those narratives and experiences.

Right, I need to stop rambling and walk to work. Woke me right up this post has, thanks Emily!

I used to think that implanting children without their consent was fundamentally wrong and that they should be allowed to wait and decide for themselves. Now that I have finally got a CI myself (at age 46) my view has changed. This is, of course, partly because the technology and procedures have matured.

Although the operation looks complicated and invasive, for the patient it typically involves rather less pain than having a root canal at the dentist. A child isn’t usually going to experience a great deal of pain and the investment in hearing makes it worth it.

Although you would think that the sound is really basic (with so few electrodes…) it is amazing how much you can hear and how clear it sounds. It takes time to learn how to hear with a CI and that’s where children have the advantage because they can learn so fast.

The only reason I would hesitate to give a child (or adult) a CI now is that the technology is marching on. The longer you wait, the better the technology becomes. But who can afford to wait? The world is full of beautiful sounds which put colour into life. Why choose to miss out on them?

I was going to write about my experiences and opinions, but Natalya’s post said it all. It is a brilliantly written post, and I agree entirely with the points she raised.

Giving her a job Limping Chicken!

I can understand why some people refer to the implantation of children as ‘abuse.’ Still, I don’t quite agree with it, as there is no intent to be cruel or abusive to the child, quite the opposite.

But when somebody has gone through it and then calls it abuse, their view should be respected and not dismissed or belittled as ‘hyperbole.’ They are owning and dealing with their experience as they see fit, perhaps retrieving the power that was taken from them.

And yes, sectarianist bullies will show animosity towards people who’ve had CIs, just like they show animosity towards deaf people who don’t sign “right.” Fortunately this is being given the contempt it deserves.

Thanks Charlie, I will relay your offer to the person in question.

Thank you for this article. I am a Deaf parent of Deaf children, with a Deaf partner, we are sign language users… and my little girl got implanted at the age of 2. Being Deaf, culturally, has baffled some people as to how could I implant my Deaf child? Because of my personal experiences, I believe being firmly in being bilingual as the best way of moving forward in life. My daughter was so profoundly deaf that hearing aids wouldn’t have benefited her so that is why we decided on a C.I. The operation took a couple of hours, and she went home on the same day. And now she is thriving as a result of the C.I and is a very dedicated sign language user as well as learning how to speak. Yes, the process toward getting a C.I was stressful, but it was stressful for us as parents. She found it interesting going for all these strange tests with colourful toys and being able to do lots of drawings. Yes we couldn’t really explain to her that she was going in for an operation but a couple of hours after the operation, she was playing in the hospital playroom as if nothing had happened. Times have changed. The operation is a small cut behind the ear now as opposed to a huge cut over the entire scalp. And I can tell you right now, C.Is does not affect one’s Deaf identity. It is people’s WORDS that does more harm than C.Is.

Given the current climate where experiences of abuse are being uncovered after years of being denied, ignored, repressed, I find the sentence ‘no shred of evidence’ really offensive. Where has evidence been looked for? What would be classed as admissible evidence? To deny so categorically there has been no abuse is itself abusive.

My view has shifted somewhat from when I wrote my poem (on my blog) about CIs, mainly due to reading the experiences of people who have had them? Personally, I would not have one but this is because of my own squeamishness about the op itself and revulsion at the thought of having foreign bodies in my head. I use hearing aids when I want to & enjoy silence when I don’t. If, as it seems, having CIs does not preclude BSL & if that is in the control of deaf people, then we need to help hearing people away from skewed perceptions about miracle cures, achieving hearing etc etc. As was said on a TV interview, CIs are just advanced hearing aids. Implanting babies & children is a separate issue & I feel if this is done without also giving access to other deaf people & to sign language, it is problematic.