February 11, 2009 10:42 PM
(CBS) The controversy over cochlear implants in children has many sides. For some in the deaf community, CIs are an affront to their culture, which as they view it, is a minority threatened by the hearing majority.
The deaf community feels that its way of life is fully functional, and that using American Sign Language instead of oral English gives them no disadvantage in society.
Mary Koch, who started the children's rehabilitation program at Johns Hopkins' Listening Center, says the medical world and the deaf world were split at the outset.
"The (deaf community's) perception is that there's nothing wrong. There's nothing that needs to be fixed. Our perception is, there is something that needs to be fixed. So from the very foundation, we're diverging in our perspectives," Koch says.
The Cochlear Implant Controversy - CBS News
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