Matthew S. Moore, publisher of Deaf Life magazine and president of DEAF.com and CochlearWar.com, is a cochlear implant opponent. Here are his own words on the matter...

Q: What are some of the deaf community’s concerns over cochlear implants?

A: I know of persons who have had bad to horrendous experiences with their implants and others whose implants functioned well mechanically but who stopped using them. Mass-media coverage seems to prefer to focus on the glorious successes instead of the disturbing failures. Yet the indifferent results and the failures may outnumber the successes. I’m still not convinced of the long-term safety of implants. Many of my deaf friends shudder at the thought of getting implants. To us, it constitutes (an unnecessary) surgical invasion of our heads.

As for the social-cultural aspect, we’re concerned about possible language deprivation. Typically parents are encouraged not to sign with their children or let their children sign, but instead to enroll them in an auditory-oral or auditory-verbal program. Auditory-verbal therapy bans all visual cues including speech reading and sign language, training the child to receive information through the auditory channel alone via amplification or implant. To us, this is an unnatural, grueling way to give deaf children basic language skills, as it forces them to rely exclusively on their weakest sensory channel. Deaf children are visual learners.

One major concern of ours is language rights. There are two contradictory trends: hearing parents signing with their hearing babies, encouraged by research that shows that early exposure to signing aids cognitive development; AND the trend for parents to approve bilateral implants for their deaf babies and then ensuring that they have no exposure to sign language. The deaf community’s position is that all deaf children have a right to learn and use sign language freely, as it enriches their lives and gives them a strong foundation in the acquisition of language skills.

There is no way to predict how well a deaf child is going to function with implants. Implants do not provide a functionally equivalent sense of hearing. Children with implants still need speech therapy and elaborate technical and educational support. All too often, the child ends up with a debilitating language gap — substandard literacy and poor speech.

Q: Many in the deaf community are offended by society’s tendency to frame their lack of hearing as a “disability” that needs to be fixed and prefer to celebrate deafness as a culture, of sorts. Do you agree?

A: Medically speaking, deafness is a disability — just as cerebral palsy and blindness are disabilities. However, unlike those with other disabilities, deaf people have created a rich and complex language — American Sign Language in this country. Culturally deaf people tend to see themselves as a quasi-ethnic or linguistic minority.

To properly understand why deaf people feel the way they do about cochlear implants — the latest in a long, long line of attempts to “fix” and “cure” deafness — you must understand history. The paternalism of oralists and the long-standing pathological views of deaf people that can still be found in the medical profession — seeing deaf people as less smart, less capable than hearing persons and seeing sign language as an inferior means of communication. The linkage of “deaf” with low expectations is still a problem that we grapple with every day.

Q: What is your response to implant proponents who say that deafness is a medical abnormality and that every effort should be made to rectify it in order to allow someone to achieve a higher level of functionality both in terms of academics, social life and general bodily safety?

A: I would agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment — had deaf people not invented sign language as a means to communicate.

I’d have to say that most deaf people resent the implication that they’re abnormal (or) defective in any way. They’d say, “What do you mean abnormal? I have a job; I work; I drive; I vote; I pay taxes; I go shopping; I enjoy gardening and shooting baskets.” We see ourselves not as defective auditory specimens but as whole, normal persons. We communicate differently, and our communicative needs are different from those of hearing people. But we’re normal.

The insidious implication of the pathological view is that, unless we get surgically altered and install costly biotechnological devices, we’re abnormal? Is that what it means? So only deaf persons with implants are normal?

As for academics, mainstreaming has had a devastating impact on our community, and why? Many deaf children do not thrive in that kind of environment. Many are alienated and adrift. Many don’t get access to the same information as their hearing classmates. Tossing in an interpreter and notetaker doesn’t create educational parity.

The cochlear-implant controversy embodies a question of empowerment: Do we control our own destinies, or do hearing persons — whether they are our parents, audiologists or surgeons — make those decisions for us?