China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
A Fatal Attraction to Normalizing
Published in Joel Michael Reynolds, Christine Wieseler, The Disability Bioethics Reader, 2022
Normalizing has costs. If maintaining or restoring normal function is of such public significance that a system of benefits is made available for this purpose, it is hard to resist supposing that those whose functioning is anomalous ought to acknowledge the system by assigning the same priority to being restored. Baynton reminds us: “Oralism meant that many deaf people had access only to limited or simplified language during the crucial early years of language development” (Baynton 1996, 1). For fear they would fall back to communicating in a more convenient but “abnormal” or “unnatural” way, deaf children were often not taught to write unless they had mastered intelligible speaking. This practice left a legacy of reduced literacy among deaf people.
Hearing loss
Published in James Law, Alison Parkinson, Rashmin Tamhne, David Hall, Communication Difficulties in Childhood, 2017
A variety of communication approaches is used with deaf children; these include oralism, total communication and bilingualism. Oral approaches advocate development of spoken language primarily through residual hearing and lipreading. Total communication approaches combine the use of spoken language with manual signs and finger spelling. Bilingual approaches identify deaf children as a linguistic minority and seek to develop sign language as a first language via an accessible modality, i.e. vision, with spoken language taught as a second language. The selection of approaches should always be based on the abilities and needs of the individual child. Many deaf children will be capable of education in mainstream schools, provided they receive the appropriate support. In certain areas, placement options may include resourced units for the hearing impaired or special schools for the deaf.
Medical Ethics
Published in John C Watkinson, Raymond W Clarke, Louise Jayne Clark, Adam J Donne, R James A England, Hisham M Mehanna, Gerald William McGarry, Sean Carrie, Basic Sciences Endocrine Surgery Rhinology, 2018
I have already described problems with knowing a person’s interests, and because children have the potential to develop in many different ways, one response to this is to claim a ‘right to an open future’ for children:34 children should mature with as many life choices as possible. One practical application is that interventions with momentous consequences should (when possible) be delayed until the child is able to make their own decision. But this is not always possible. Cochlear implantation provides an example. Two broad approaches can be adopted for deaf children. Conventionally, deafness is taken to be a disability. Oralism encourages the use of spoken language. Hearing aids (and now cochlear implants) maximize the child’s ability to hear, and are combined with intensive speech therapy. Sign language is banned in some cases, to encourage children to interact with spoken language. Some deaf children, particularly those with some hearing, achieve success with this route, but others, especially those with profound deafness, don’t. The second strategy embraces Deaf culture and the Deaf World (with a capital ‘D’), encouraging signing and rejecting spoken language. Deaf culture is celebrated. Communication is fundamentally different: imagine poetry in sign language. As a result there are two separate paths for deaf children: oralism or Deaf culture. The earlier a person starts to sign, the better their signing becomes and vice versa. Compounding this, those who have some hearing or use verbal communication may not be taken to be ‘properly’ deaf and so are excluded from the Deaf community. The reverse may also be true. In deciding how to rear their deaf child, Deaf parents are at some advantage. They have their own experiences, and they may have considered the possibility of a deaf child (and indeed some have chosen a deaf child*). A compounding problem is that the Deaf community may have expectations of the choices that Deaf parents should make (to preserve the Deaf community). Parents of deaf children have important choices to make at an early stage in their child’s lives: ‘Deaf people in the hearing world are always going to be at a disadvantage. So the question is whether people prefer to be marginal in a mainstream world, or mainstream in a marginal world and many people quite understandably prefer the latter.’47 And the question must be answered when the child is young. An attempt to keep both options open – a right to an open future – is unlikely to lead to success in either option.
Toward an Understanding of the Experiences of Deaf Gay Men: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to an Intersectional View
Published in Journal of Homosexuality, 2022
Lilli Erin Beese, Fiona Tasker
Sexual and gender minorities experience the pressures of heteronormativity and cisnormativity—the cultural and social pressures to conform to, or at least fit in with, mainstream sociocultural heterosexual and cis-gender values (Allen & Mendez, 2018; Warner, 1993). Heteronormativity exerts pressure on sexual minority people to conform to couple relationships that mirror the ideal of marriage (Lasio, Serri, Ibba., & De Oliveira, 2018; Rosenfeld, 2009; Tasker, Moller, Clarke, & Hayfield, 2018). Likewise, deaf people experience oralism—a pressure to be part of the oral-aural community—particularly as children within the education system (Hutchison, 2007). For both sets of communities there are concurrent themes of medicalization, oppression, and discrimination (Klinger, 2007). For example, in the U.S., Canada, and western Europe homosexuality was once pathologized as a deviance from heterosexual norm to be “cured,” then moved to becoming culturally recognized through same-sex marriage or partnership legislation. Nevertheless, social acceptance and equal rights legislation is still not universal (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association Europe, 2021). In a similar way many hearing people still view deafness as an illness or as a disability, with cochlear implants seen as a way to circumvent this (Hall, 2017).
Cochlear implant in a subject affected by the Chudley-McCullough Syndrome
Published in Cochlear Implants International, 2019
Francesca Forli, Giacomo Fiacchini, Luca Bruschini, Michele Caniglia, Stefano Berrettini
A 31-year-old female was referred for prelingual profound sensorineural bilateral hearing impairment. The subject was called ‘Patient 1’ in the work published by Matteucci et al. (2006) in 2006. She was born from non-consanguineous parents at 36 weeks after an uncomplicated gestation and the delivery was normal. At the age of 1 month the head was noted to be growing rapidly and a CT scan of the brain showed an enlargement of the lateral ventricles. A ventriculo-peritoneal shunting was placed at 3 months causing a reduction of the ventricular volume and shape. The first audiological assessment was performed at 2 years old showing profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss; the child was fitted with high powered hearing aids bilaterally and submitted to an oralist rehabilitation programme, until the age of 14. Thanks to an intensive oralist rehabilitation, she developed a good level of oral language. She was never rehabilitated with sign language. No worsening of her hearing level was noted during the following years. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed when she was 16 years old showing a complex malformation: colpocephalic dilatation of the trigonum and occipital horns of the lateral ventricles (with normal frontal horns); corpus callosum splenium agenesis; round-shaped arachnoid cyst in the pineal region impinging the superior part of the quadrigeminal plate and the aqueduct; cortical pachigyria with cortical infolding of the right parietal-occipital lobes; polymicrogyria of the frontal cortex along the interhemispheric fissure, bilaterally; hypoplasia of the inferior cerebellar vermis with a diffuse cortical dysplasia. The physical examination showed normal fundus, joint laxity, mild scoliosis, normal puberal development, and some facial dysmorphism: large forehead, synophrys, and anterverted nares. Both hands had tapered fingers and single palmar creases. She had had no delay during childhood in motor development. A neuropsychiatric evaluation indicated cognitive skills within normal range, with imbalance between verbal and performance skills, most likely due to deafness; at a neuropsychological observation she showed few personal and social interests, appeared sluggish, shy, with good memory skills. The laboratory tests, including toxoplasma gondii, cytomegalovirus, rubella virus, herpes simplex virus screen (TORCH), G and Q banded standard karyotype, DNA analysis for connexin 26 and 30, as well as visual evoked potentials (VEP) were normal (Matteucci et al., 2006). After the clinical suspicion of CMS, DNA analysis was done in 2014 and resulted positive for homozygous pathogenic mutation in the GPSM2 gene (c.1471delG).