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1st May 2012

Photoset reblogged from remember remember the fifth of november with 769,127 notes

p-3a:

stabikachu:

pupukachoo:

amischiefofmice:

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br8kspider:

secretsbest:

8 month old baby hearing his mother’s voice for the first time with cochlear implant

This is the most beautiful thing ever.

thank you science

this post always bothers me without fail

I just….

that’s a major operation and change in the infant’s life and they can’t even make the decision themselves to have it or not.

idk I just think things like that should wait until the child is at least old enough to say that it’s something they want.

:/ wat?

what

why would you choose to be disabled

whatttt

SIOADHGODHFADOSIFH WHAT

as someone who PERSONALLY had their parents make the decision for me to get grommets in my ears so i wouldn’t be entirely deaf by age 21, i’d have to say you are a fucking idiot for thinking it’s bad for the parents to want to improve their entire child’s living standards as early as possible

but look at the baby, you can tell he’s fucking pissed

His first words are going to be “what gives you the fucking right”

first I awww’ed and smiled then I read the comments and what

That’s tumblr for you. I try to ignore people who suck the joy of life out of everything for the sake of being offended. that gifset is too sweet.

And there’s deaf/hard of hearing folk who wouldn’t take the implants, if given a choice :/ There’s blogs going around authored by deaf tumblr users that can fill people in on why far better than I can. I’d suggest people have a read and find things out from the perspective of as many deaf individuals/communities as they can before reaching a conclusion that may not be fully informed.

However it is a lovely gifset, imo, and I do think it’s for the parent to decide-but the commenter is in no way a “fucking idiot” for holding an opinion that contradicts what seems to be the norm, particularly as it holds some valid points. Also; disability does not -have- to equal lesser quality of life.

Cochlear Implants permanently disable the hearing in the ear that they’re installed in and the sound that comes through them is very distorted. It takes a person months or years to learn to interpret the sound coming through a CI as it is very garbled compared to natural hearing - if you know Star Trek, compare Geordi’s visor and how uninterpretable the input from it is to Cpt Picard.

A more common reaction for a baby hearing through their CI for the first time is screaming or crying because they’re receiving input to their brain in an entirely new way, and babies generally don’t like new things. CIs can also fail altogether and they still remove all chance of ever hearing through that ear at all, whether they succeed or not.

also some(/most?) Deaf people don’t ID as disabled

so much abled glurge

A lot of people seem to take simple things like hearing for granted. The centre in the brain that is responsible for processing language becomes developed by about 2 years old, and so the ‘window’ period for a child to optimally develop any sort of speech/language ability is pretty narrow. At the very least, CIs allows very young children that chance. They could be implanted at an older age, but evidence points to a greater advantage in speech/language performance if they are implanted earlier.

Also, ability to make calculated decisions are not synonymous with being an infant/child. At the end of the day, it’s the parents’ call if they feel that things like CIs are the best way forward for their congenitally deaf child or not, and honestly, whether or not they go for that option, we as intelligent, mature human beings have to respect their decision (assuming that they are also sensible, intelligent, mature adults and parents).

Edited to add: from my own clinical experience, for every congenitally deaf adult who opposes the CI, there is also one who is all for it - just like in any sort of group of so-called-disabled minority, views on this are going to vary. Really, my opinion, aside from the parents-decision bit, is that not being deaf ourselves, I don’t think we are in any position to speak for the deaf community and what they think about it - more so if the stand on this amongst themselves is this divided.

That was roughly what I was aiming to get at- but the lack of sleep led to poor wording. I’m not deaf myself so I wasn’t meaning to definitively speak on the subject, just to offer an alternate viewpoint that exists&isn’t to be dismissed as easily as some of the posters would do so.

My (deaf) mother would have taken the implants from that age, if she’d been able to. It’s always been something she’s wanted; to be hearing. Not all the deaf community around here would share the point, but eh- it’s too personal a matter for anyone else to judge.

Source: deckardcain

Chu chu~