I decided to do my paper on Cochlear Implants; I spent about an hour or so reading about this implant. And it really was interesting to see how America just doesn’t give up always wanting to change something. What is a cochlear implant? A cochlear implant is a small, complex electronic device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard-of hearing. The implant consists of an external portion that sits behind the ear and a second portion that is surgically placed under the skin.
An implant contains a microphone, which picks up sound from the Environment, a speech processor, which selects and arranges sounds picked up by the microphone, a transmitter and receiver/stimulator, which receive signals from the speech processor and convert them into electric impulses, and an electrode array, which is a group of electrodes That collects the impulses from the stimulator and sends them to different regions of the auditory nerve.
An implant does not restore normal hearing. Instead, it can give a deaf person a useful representation of sounds in the environment and help him or her to understand speech. Many members of the deaf community are content with their unique culture and do not regard deafness as a disorder or something that needs to be cured. Within the deaf community, particular scorn is reserved for the practice of placing cochlear implants in young children.
The National Association of the Deaf, maintains that there is no evidence that deaf children who receive implants early are better able to acquire English or have greater educational success than other deaf children. It all just seems so invasive, and unnecessary. I can’t believe people acutally consider this option. I’m almost a little bit jealous of the deaf world; I wish I didn’t have to listen to half of the stuff that comes out of hearing people’s mouths,
