rockdrummer said:
I guess I don't understand the difference (other than surgury required) between hearing aids and a CI. I admint that I am ignorant to these issues and I am here to learn so can someone please tell me what is the difference on how the HA or CI impacts the deaf culture. When hearing aids became available did folks feel the deaf culture was threatened then? And after all of these years with hearing aids, did that come true? It' seems to me that the deaf culture is thriving today as it did pre-hearing aids. Also, If my information is correct, the CI has been around for over 20 years. From what I see the deaf culture is still alive and well. While I am not fully understanding the issues with the deaf culture, I don't believe it will ever diminish. I don't think that it is possible because not every person that is deaf or HOH will benefit from HA or CI and there are more deaf and HOH born every day not to mention those that become deaf and/or HOH for other reasons. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Thank you.
Honestly, there's no difference between a hearing aids and cochlear implants, when most deaf adults/children can be benefit from either of them. Hearing aids wasn't a threaten to the deaf culture that because it was still around by the time I was born, and alot of deaf and hard of hearing people knew about hearing aids more than they knew about cochlear implants because it wasn't popular back in the old days until now, and the way I see it is that when cochlear implants became much more popular than hearing aids, some deaf people feel threaten for their deaf culture cause it will no longer feel " deaf " to them when they realize that more deaf people want to be able to hear much more than really accepting their own deafness when I personally don't see a reason why CI users can not be accepted into the deaf culture when they're still deaf or hard of hearing whether they're implanted with CI or wearing hearing aids because I see no difference in this..
But unfortunately there are some deaf people who spreads out false informations about cochlear implants and that how I learned about it from other deaf people, that may be another reason why I was so against cochlear implant back then, but when I read more about cochlear implants I don't see no difference because it's not a cure or a miracle when cochlear implants are just there to help others who has no use or benefit from any hearing aids...
I don't believe that cochlear implants is the only threaten to the deaf culture when some deaf people do not like those who use oral methods by using their voices to speak and not sign at all, it's the same thing as not being accepted by those who have " Deaf pride " in them means we must learn their language, otherwise most or some from the Deaf culture won't pay us attention..
The way I see it is that many hearing people is given the opportuntity to learn from a deaf or hard of hearing person, and learn their deaf culture etc are very much acceptable than those deaf people from the deaf culture...I just find it so unfair for those to make such a judgement on whether or not some may be implanted with CI, or wearing hearing aids, learning sign language or rather to raise in a oral methods, but the bottom line is, it should be up to each deaf or hard of hearing individuals and it should not be up to the others on how we should live with our own deafness....
The thing is, there's always going to be two sides and it has been like this for a long time as far as I have seen it, as I can understand where everyone is coming from on this, no one is wrong or right for feeling this way....
