Throughout the documentary Sound and Fury, many different people gave their opinions and reasoning for why a child should or should not get a cochlear implants. After watching this film, I feel that cochlear implants are positive concepts that should at the very least be considered for all children born deaf.
I know that I am not a part of the deaf Discourse, so people may think that my opinion shouldn't be considered as much, but I have an aunt who works at a school with many deaf children, so I have had some experiences with the deaf culture. I have also always found American Sign Language to be a very interesting and unique way of communication, so that would be sad to lose if all deaf people became hearing. I think that if a child was to get a cochlear implant, they would still be able to retain their culture and language without transferring completely to the hearing world.
Many of the arguments for getting a child a cochlear implant were very logical. In addition to the emotion and ethics that this decision calls for, the logic is probably the most important. Since the implant is a surgical procedure, it should not be taken lightly. There has been plenty of proof that most deaf people, especially when implanted as children, regain a significant enough amount of hearing for the surgery to be worth it. Even when people aren’t deliberately discriminating against the deaf, there are going to be many opportunities the deaf will miss out on.
Deaf people can generally only communicate with others who are deaf. According to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, less than 500,000 people in the U.S. are completely deaf in both ears. Since this is such a small portion of the millions of people in our country, deaf people have a hard time finding people that they can relate to outside of deaf family members. School is harder because the child either has to find a deaf school (which generally does not produce a quality education) or a personal translator to interpret for them in a normal class. In addition, communication problems can make finding work and moving up in ranking much more difficult, if possible at all.
Almost all the people in the film remembered or thought about how deaf people are teased. Growing up is hard enough with being constantly tormented for something a child can’t help. These are just a few of the reasons arguing for a cochlear implant.
Why wouldn’t parents want their children to gain so many more of these opportunities? As it was portrayed in the movie, people might feel that the child will lose their deaf culture and look down upon other deaf people. The thing is, the cochlear implant does not make the person hearing, it only makes it possible to hear at certain times with the use of the implant. I think that a child should learn how to speak normally, then they can learn sign language when they’re older if they so choose. I think that people will be interested in their true heritage, and then they will know what to do (signing and deaf culture) if their hearing ever goes away again.
I personally felt that some of the reasons relatives give in the film against the cochlear implant were more selfish than anything. They argued that the child wouldn’t like them anymore and that they were ashamed of the deaf culture. This seems like these relatives only want the kid to be deaf so that they had more people to talk to and relate to, even if it was harder for the kid in the long run.
I feel that the cochlear implant is almost always the right choice for a child (unless some other medical reason says otherwise) because of the better future it offers them. Al l the logic points towards cochlear implants being positive, while the arguments against the implant always seem to be personally emotions selfishly getting in the way.
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