Recently, in my class on deafness we watched the documentary called Sound and Fury. It follows two related Deaf families as they decide whether or not cochlear implants is a good idea for their children. Peter and Nita Artinian are a married Deaf couple who happily gave birth to deaf children. At some point, their oldest child, Heather, comes to them and says (at only 4 years of age) that she would like to have a cochlear implant. The film follows the Artinian family as they look into the operation and visit several families of children with cochlear implants. Deaf individuals are very proud to have Deaf children so this is not an easy decision for Peter and Nita. In fact, they are afraid that Heather will become capable of speech through the implants and lose out on her Deaf culture. There is a scene where Nita takes Heather to a Deaf school based on the oral method with nearly all the children having had cochlear implant surgery. Heather feels very left out and hearing individuals feel a sense of sorrow at her isolation from the other school children. However, Nita later explains that she felt bad for the children because they didn't know how to sign. One can see how there are two very different ways of thinking between the hearing and Deaf worlds. A hearing person might ask the question what does it matter if Heather loses her deaf idenity, wouldn't it be better if she could hear and speak. A Deaf person would say that cochlear implants turn Deaf children into robots and disguises them from who they really are - to not know one's deafness is almost shameful.
The documentary also follows Chris and Mari Artinian as they choose cochlear implant surgery for their baby. Chris is Peter's brother and both Chris and Mari were born hearing although Mari had two deaf parents. Hearing children born to Deaf parents sometimes rebel later on in life, as did Mari. It is difficult for them as children because they must constantly be their parents' gateway between the hearing and Deaf world. They have two identities in a sense and having Deaf parents can often make them feel different from other children who have hearing parents. Much the same, Deaf children of hearing parents often feel isolated because they are part of a different culture which is unknown to the hearing parents. This is one of the reasons why hearing parents often do not accept their children's deafness and immediately desire options such as cochlear implants. For the hearing world, deafness is a handicap and needs a "cure." Deaf individuals are often very proud of their deafness and truthfully might prefer having Deaf children over hearing children. In class, we read about a Deaf couple who opted to have an abortion when they found out that their child would be born hearing. Of course, this is an extreme case but just the same I think many people do not realize how strong Deaf culture is for deaf individuals.
Although, I do not think that cochlear implants are always the answer to the birth of a Deaf child. It should be noted that some children will not react well to the implants and may never develop strong oral skills. It is actually discouraging to me that parents often opt for oralism over American Sign Languare (ASL) for the education of their children. But there lies the biggest problem with choosing cochlear implants for a child at such a young age because when children are given cochlear implants the course that follows is generally the oral method which means that children are not allowed to sign. That is not to say that a family couldn't initially opt for cochlear implants and then later decide that ASL would be a better option but there is a fear that once children begin signing they will never want to speak. The reason for this: ASL is the natural language of the Deaf. Many public school systems fail to recognize this, in all honesty they will not accept that a Deaf child is deaf. Which is why oralism has been put above ASL for so long. The problem with this is that some Deaf children never take to oralism and by being denied ASL they suffer both mentally and psychologically. Hearing parents often stifle their child's mental growth by pushing the oral method and disallowing the use of sign because if a child does not take well to oralism then they simply have no other means of communicating or expressing their thoughts.
In Heather's case, she is an incredibly intelligent 4 year old and shows promise of oral skills without any hearing assistant. Therefore, Heather's grandmother was extremely persistant in trying to push Peter to opt for the cochlear implant surgery for Heather. The documentary made me really think differently about cochlear implants because I definitely agree that Heather has the chance to really flourish with their use and could probably became a very oral individual. I think the fact that Heather has deaf parents and was surrounded by ASL was incredibly beneficial to her learning abilities and with cochlear implants at the age of 4 there is a good chance she could function keenly in the hearing world. I could almost feel angry at the fact that her parents chose to keep her exclusively to the Deaf world. By the end, they had not only chosen not to give Heather cochlear implant (therefore perhaps denying her ability to ever really hear or learn speech) but decided to move to an almost all Deaf community in Maine where Heather would be isolated from the hearing world. It seem that she could have easily been bicultural and bilingual in both the hearing and Deaf world. Why would the Artinian's limit her to only the one side when deafness can be limited in it's own right.
This documentary really made me see things in a different light because before I would have been very much against the idea of cochlear implants on children because I feared for how it might deprive them of learning since as I mentioned children are often restricted to oralism when implants are decided by hearing parents. Deaf parents on the other hand may never look into the idea of implant to begins with. But after seeing this I understood that cochlear implants should be based more on the situation and the particular child. Chris and Mari decided to implant their 11 month old baby son and it is difficult at that age to really say what is best for a Deaf child. In the end, there is never a clear line and each parent must make their own decision on what they think is best regardless of what their family members and friends might think. Issues like oralism v. ASL and whether or not to have a child implanted with cochlear implants are left for continued debate but there is no doubt that parents with Deaf children have the best intentions but whether or not they do in fact make the most fruitful decision can only remain to be seen in the future as the child grows into adulthood. Interestingly enough, the director of this documentary made a follow-up called Sound and Fury: 6 Years Later but for some reason it is a bit obscure and hasn't really been made readily available to the general market.
Sound and Fury Trailer
Sound and Fury Clip. Really amazing scene where Peter and his mother argue over the decision not to get cochlear implants for Heather.
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2 comments:
If a documentary changes the way you think about something, does that make it a good documentary?
ES
Just because a child is implanted, doesn't necesssarily mean that you have to choose the Oral approach or the ASL approach. In our case, our child has benefited from both worlds, and thus, by making a decision for him when he was 11 months old, we actually gave him a choice. If he chooses to not wear his implants (he is now bi-lateral), then so be it, but he has the tools to make that decision for himself. By not implanting my son, then we would have made the decision for him. The implant is not as successful if a Deaf person (who has very little hearing) gets implanted later in life. The earlier the better for the most successful outcome.
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