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Not everyone is sold on the cochlear implant

Thursday, September 28, 2000

By AMY E. NEVALA
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Twenty years ago physicians predicted a future where every deaf person received a cochlear implant that enabled them to hear.

But many deaf people saw it differently then, and still do today.

"A death knell for deaf culture," Michael Dowds of Bellevue says of the implants. Born deaf, he understands why the device appeals to some while others bristle at the suggestion.

"Some even see it as genocide," he says.

As demand for the high-tech hearing device grows -- 25 percent annually, manufacturer estimates show -- with improved hearing in two-thirds of 35,000 worldwide recipients, deaf activists argue that cochlear implants threaten a rich culture, one that includes a sense of shared identity and about 400,000 fluent American Sign Language users.

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    • Long labeled retarded, uneducable or even possessed, the deaf have gained footing only since the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Now many deem the implants unnecessary, oppressive and emotionally risky, especially among young adults.

    A 15-year-old deaf boy removed the outer portion of the device worn on the ear, swearing that he would never put it on again.

    "I hate it, I hate my parents for doing this to me. I resent them for it, and now I have to live with this scar," he told Cara Hammond, a speech/language pathologist at the Illinois School for the Deaf.

    "He explained that it made him different from his deaf friends in a way that made it hard for him to be accepted," Hammond said.

    Many deaf activists, mainly deaf educators and deaf people born to deaf parents, want deaf individuals to make their own implant decision. But doctors encourage parents of deaf children not to wait and that's why sparks often fly.

    Medical professionals believe that ages 1 to 3 are the best years for implantation among deaf children because the development of language is more natural at that stage.

    Implanting babies and children is irresponsible, activists argue, because it's done for the convenience of hearing parents. Trying to "fix" a deaf child is like trying to fix someone because he or she speaks Chinese, said Jennifer Huxtable, 30, of Kent who became deaf as an infant.

    Kay Amos, a deaf Seattle resident born to deaf parents, agreed. "Cochlear implants mold (deaf) children into somebody they are not," she said.

    But parents of children with the implants compare the devices to glasses for correcting vision or wheelchairs for the physically disabled. As one mother of three deaf children said, "If they were born without an arm, wouldn't I give them a prosthetic arm?"

    Last year 3,000 people, nearly half of them children, were implanted with devices made by the Cochlear Corp., the largest of three manufacturers. It is not unusual for adults and even the elderly to consider a cochlear implant.

    "I've got a fellow who is 90 and wants one," said George Gates, a head and neck surgeon who performs cochlear implants at the University of Washington Medical Center.

    The Food and Drug Administration approved implants for adults in 1985; in 1990 it approved implants for children as young as 12 months. Today one deaf child in 10 nationwide has a cochlear implant. In the next decade, projections suggest, the ratio will grow to one in three.

    Of the 28 million people worldwide who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, 300,000 are eligible for the implants, said Christin Driscoll with the National Campaign for Hearing Health in Washington, D.C.

    Deaf people say it's often difficult for the hearing population to understand why someone without hearing would refuse a cochlear implant. Michael Dowds, 34, decided against one last year.

    Deaf since birth, he graduated from a prestigious East Coast technical school and today works as a software tester. Though he is struggling to find full-time employment, which he blames on shortsighted employers, he's proud of his professional achievements, which include stints at Microsoft.

    An implant may be right for some, he said, but not for him.

    "A big part of me feels that I would be betraying myself, because if I had been born hearing, I wouldn't be as strong as I am today or have as much confidence in my ability to get through anything."

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