Cochlear Implants Case Study

The Results and Outcomes

As talked about before the first initial sounds after the device is activated and programmed sound rather odd and irregular but that isn’t an accurate representation of the actual results or outcomes from receiving the surgery. For adults who have an acquired hearing loss the results are easier to interpret than that of children who lost their hearing pre-lingual. With adults the process is quite easy through the rehab to the patient become familiar with the new device. Once the hearing comes back, adults can go back to their day to day lives with much improvement. In the case of children you have to look at more than just their hearing as a result of implantation. The child’s speech perception and language development

Such factors include of the degree of hearing loss and how long the hearing has been gone. The average cost for the surgery and rehab afterwards is around $40,000 ("Cochlear Implant Frequently Asked Questions”). Even though costs seem high compared to other medical procedures it has been ranked among the highest in the most cost effective due to recent research on the issue (Boswell, Susan). When it comes down to weighing the pros and cons of the surgery due to the costs you have to think about how much money you would ended spending in a lifetime for a child you had a significant pre-lingual hearing loss. It has been stated that the average amount spent in a lifetime with that child could be around $1,000,000 which means that you could save on average about $53,000 per child when going through with this surgery ("Cochlear Implant Frequently Asked

Robert Sparrow is a renowned professor in philosophy at Monash University who has worked closely with the members of the deaf community and culture to capture their views on cochlear implants. The “cure” for deafness and a new age “genocide” is how the deaf community views cochlear implants, according to Dr. Sparrow. The protest against cochlear implants has always been prevalent but in the 80’s when the age limit dropped to 2 years old it was like a can of gasoline was poured on the fire and since then with new changes came new rage. The community feels that parents shouldn’t be able to make the choices for their children on whether or not they are going to get the implant and not be deaf anymore. They think that the child should have choices in whether they want to be deaf or not (Sparrow, Robert). When a child who is deaf is given the gift of hearing they do not need to rely on their sign language because their spoken language has not been affected due to their disability. The deaf community see this as not letting them actually become members of the culture itself. When someone hasn’t actually needed to depend upon ALS for complete communication and aren’t as fluent in it as someone who is deaf, they are not viewed as members of the deaf community (Sparrow, Robert). These implants are said to be decreasing the population of deaf community because of the loss dependency on ALS. There has been a push in recent years to view being deaf has a cultural, minority group