Cochlear Implants: The Deaf Community In Sound And Fury

In the documentary, Sound and Fury, the daughter of Peter and Nita, Heather, wanted a cochlear implant, but in the end, her parents decided not to get her the implant although three years later, Heather received the cochlear implant. Although Heather was about ten years old when she finally received the cochlear implant, she was able to learn to speak and listen without previous exposure to sounds before the surgery. In the documentary, a group of Deaf people were shocked by Chris and Mari’s decision to implant their son who was only an infant at the time. While the Deaf community may be somewhat showing some acceptance towards the cochlear implants now, issues about when to implant a child remains and if the decision should rest solely on

Some parents may make the choice to wait and have their child decide to get an cochlear implant when he or she is older because they believe that the child would have the ability to make a choice for the lifestyle that he or she desire to have either in the Deaf community or hearing world. One argument would be that the child would have exposure to the Deaf community or what could be considered as their “natural culture,” but if he or she had been implanted early in his or her lives, the chances of being rejected by the Deaf community would be very high. In the documentary, when Chris and Mari revealed the choice of implanting their son at the picnic, the Deaf people were hostile toward them because they were “taking away one

One might argue that Heather was nearly ten years old when she first received her implant, and she managed to learn how to listen and talk, which is true. However, she received very intense training and help from her hearing grandparents, also she had proven herself to be very intelligent and hard-working, and finally Heather was simply lucky. Some deaf adults who grew up without hearing any sounds might make the choice to receive the implant and then they reported that they were not able to understand the sounds or struggles with decoding speech, and the Deaf community would often refer to these bad experiences as evidence to fight against the cochlear implants. Yet they do not mention the fact that those adults with the bad experiences were too old to learn how to speak or listen, especially without prior experiences to sounds, and their brains were no longer in the learning stages as an infant first born and aware of the world around him or her. Also, getting an implant does not prevent a child from learning ASL as well, they may not be welcome in the Deaf community, but there are more programs available for him or her to meet other oral, deaf children who may also know ASL and rejected from the community. The child will also have the choice to decide if they