Hi everyone,
I'm new here. My beautiful little girl Sarah just turned two. She is profound bilateral deaf and currently using hearing aids. As yet, hearing aids have not helped much. Sarah's mom and I are both hearing and are trying to decide if CI is right for our family. We're grateful for forums like this on the internet, and we'd like to share our thoughts and get your feedback. Please forgive in advance if anything we think offends you, as this is a sensitive subject. We're learning and still ignorant in many areas, especially Deaf Culture.
Our Thoughts Against CI
1. Sarah is beautiful just as she is. She doesn't need "fixing"!
2. If implanted, will she be rejected by some in the Deaf community?
3. Despite our best efforts, will she resent our choice for her when she is older?
4. It could be a failure and offer no benefit.
5. Surgery has risks.
6. CI may make it impossible for future treatment like stem cell or other research, (unlikely soon, but who knows?).
7. Dependence on a technological device.
8. Assuming a CI "success", what if the device fails years after becoming dependant on it?
9. Sarah could end up Not Hearing, and at the same time Not Deaf.
10. Our greatest desire is for our daughter to be happy, and we believe happiness is more a result of good character and right thinking, and has little to do with whether one is Hearing or Deaf. Hearing is ok. Deaf is ok. Is CI necessary?
Our Thoughts For CI
1. The hope that Sarah will acquire spoken language and be able to communicate with the other 99% of the population without an interpreter or other device.
2. The hope that Sarah will be able to deeply interact with her whole family. I read that something like 80% of hearing parents of deaf children are not ASL proficient. That floors me, but sadly it's not unbelievable. If parents aren't ASL literate, what about everyone else in the family? We learn so much from communication with family members and we very much want that for Sarah.
3. Education. Sarah can reach the highest levels of education without hearing, however the statistics say this is difficult.
4. Telephone communication without relay service listening.
5. Music.
6. Seeing other successful CI implant users, will my daughter resent the fact that we didn't do everything medically possible to give her access to spoken communication and sound.
7. If we wait till Sarah is old enough to make her own intelligent decision, a huge opportunity is missed, since language acquisition is critical early in life. As parents we have the awesome responsibility to choose for our child, until she is able to intelligently choose for herself.
8. If Sarah hates the CI, can't she just choose not to wear it when she is mature enough to make the decision? We would respect her choice in a heartbeat.
9. Hearing aids are used and widely accepted by both hearing and Deaf culture, please correct if wrong. Isn't a CI just another type of hearing aid? Of course a CI requires surgery to implant (no small thing), but if surgery is the only issue here, then what is the controversy?
10. Last in importance and a purely selfish desire to be able to sing my daughter to sleep at night and to hear her call me daddy.
Thanks,
-SarahsDad