jillio
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- Jun 14, 2006
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How can you make an informed decision about whether to CI or not a young baby, then ?????
You simply CAN NOT.
Not wanting to know is not an excuse if you participate in disussion that weighs pro and cons of early implantation.
You either know and understand the impact of early and late implantation, or you don't, and that is your choice, but if you don't care/ don't know about it you shouldn't discuss pro and con of implanting little babies.
It could be, for instance, implanting an older child who is past language development.
Fuzzy
Shel is extremely well informed regarding all of the implications regarding CI, and not simply the variables affecting level of hearing provided by the devise. You are concentrating on one aspect only; shel ont he other hand has a more holistic approach in her understanding. Not, does she make decisions regarding the implant decision. She has a personal opinion based on the audiological, sociological, linguistic, and educational implications of implantation. You would do well to avail yourself of her extensive knowledge in order to become more well informed yourself.
Based on the last bolded statement, your reasoning would lead to not implanting a child at a later point even though they could be provided some auditory gain. Ot what about the many, many deaf adults who have been implanted well past childhood from a developmental and chronological base? Should we refuse to implant them, as well? They do not have the opportunity to gain as much froma CI regarding the acquisistion of langauge as does a baby. Should the fact that they will not achieve linguistic gains, but could possible achieve a great degree of auditory gain be used as a reason to deny impantation? The fact of the matter is, CI is a devise used to enhance auditory function period. And CI alone has failed to improve the educational functioning and the liguistic functioning of untold numbers of deaf children. You must look at all of the issues. And for those children who have not been able to function on an oral basis, despite their CIs, what is it that you would propose we do with them?