Proof to Complicate the Ethical Debate: Cochlear Implant Efficacy in Aiding Language Development

“Language Development in Profoundly Deaf Children With Cochlear Implants”
Authors: Mario A. Svirsky, Amy M. Robbins, Karen Iler Kirk, David B. Pisoni and Richard T. Miyamoto
Publication: Psychological Science
Date: March 2000

This article, while being from the scientific press, nonetheless gives a good background to the debate surrounding the use of cochlear implants. I came across the article through a search in Brown University’s InfoGate. The article introduced me to the Deaf World community, who argue against the use of cochlear implants, and use such strong words as “genocide” to characterize the impact of cochlear implants on the Deaf World. About the Deaf World community, the authors of this article write, “Members of this culture use a sign language as their primary language and do not view themselves as handicapped: They see their use of a sign language and their hearing impairment as part of normal human variation.” This is an absurd way to characterize the deaf world. It is true, “normal human variation” does include deafness, but it also includes people more prone to high cholesterol and heart attacks. Would people in the latter category refuse available treatment because they are simply a normal part of human variation? To me, this interpretation of the Deaf World is significantly incomplete, and somewhat incomprehensible.

The article goes on to say that regardless of the debate surrounding the ethical implications of implantation they will focus on development of English language when aided by the implant, “which has been recognized as the most important outcome measure by both proponents and opponents of cochlear implants.” It is difficult to imagine that the Deaf World community, which was so violently opposed to cochlear implants, would appreciate its value in learning the English language. The article, which is otherwise well annotated, lacks a reference here.

The authors of this study conducted a previous study, the results of which were used to analyze the new data presented in this article. The previous study collected information on the language development of profoundly deaf children who lost their hearing before they developed language (or who were born without hearing), and who used traditional hearing aides instead of cochlear implants. This information was used in the newer study to compare the language development of the implanted children to their expected development had they used traditional hearing aides instead.The study found exactly what they were looking for: while all deaf children experienced a delay in language acquirement compared to normal-hearing children, implantation prevented the gap in language acquisition from broadening as it would for unimplanted children. This is shown in a number of complicated graphs in the article, but all seem to draw the same conclusion: despite a wide individual variance in results, the implant does help profoundly deaf children acquire language.

Despite being a scientific article, this article provided me with only a superficial understanding of the direct effects of cochlear implantation on language acquisition. However, scientific evidence that the cochlear implant is effective in aiding language development is essential information for understanding the ethical debate over cochlear implantation.