Cochlear Implants: Controversy

Cochlear implants have been dogged by controversy since the earliest stages of their development. In the mid-1970s, when French otologist Claude-Henri Chouard, a pioneer in implant surgery, was implanting on average one deaf patient per month, the French Deaf community protested against the procedure, staging rallies in 1977 and 1978. About that same time, another implant pioneer, Graeme Clark of Australia, found himself greeted by Australian Deaf protesters who resented the negative portrayal of deaf people and their lives that Clark promoted in the media as he sought to sell the public on his research. He reported that he was “surprised” to find that deaf people were upset with his efforts to “cure” them. This entry describes the controversy regarding cochlear implants.

Many in the Deaf community—meaning those people who participate in Deaf culture, have a deep appreciation of Deaf history and traditions, and use a signed language to communicate—do not consider deafness a medical condition in need of a cure. They believe deafness is a necessary precursor to Deafness, and Deafness is about being a member of a cultural and linguistic minority group. This smaller Deaf community, it should be noted, is distinct from the millions of people who have some degree of hearing loss. For instance, although some 13 million U.S. residents have varying degrees of hearing loss, only about 600,000 of them call themselves Deaf.

These Deaf Americans, like their international counterparts, reacted negatively to cochlear implants. The Greater Los Angeles Association of the Deaf (GLAD) published a position paper on implants in 1985. That report expressed concern that the medical profession generally failed to acknowledge the existence of a Deaf perspective about deafness, let alone about implants. The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) issued a position paper on implants in 1991, condemning the use of implants in children and objecting to the oralism that the technology promotes.

It is not simply the audiological intervention, the imperative to hear, that draws the ire of many in the Deaf community. Members also object to the pressure to speak. The cochlear implant technology promotes speech, and only speech, as the expected communication method for implantees. For example, Web sites of both implant manufacturers and surgical centers stress that the goal of the procedure is to promote speech and listening. Some also recommend the complete abandonment of any signed language with a deaf child, arguing the continued use of signs will interfere with the acquisition of speech.

Many in the Deaf community view this as an attack on their language and their culture, as much as on their physicality. This is not the first time such issues have been raised. Oralists at the beginning of the 20th century believed that sign language should be banned from deaf education altogether, and only speech and lipreading should be used with deaf schoolchildren. From the point of view of many in the Deaf community, cochlear implants are a high-tech weapon in an old battle against American Sign Language, a prominent marker of Deaf culture. To many, this technology is trying to do what oral education techniques alone could not, that is, make deaf people over in a hearing image.

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