IMPLANTS, IMPLANTS, EVERYWHERE!

So, it has been a while since I wrote anything on the blog.......that is because we as a family were at a camp for kids with cochlear implants and their families. It was great to see so many kids with implants and see how well they were doing!! It is always nice to see deaf children who are older than Chance so that we can see what the road ahead might look like.

We all made great friends at the camp and learned a lot. Cochlear implants have come a long way since they first came about. They have more channels and allow the user to get more out of their hearing. It was good to talk to other parents who are going through the same things that we are with Chance.

Although technology has come a long way for deaf children, the public perceptions of what these kids are capable of is still limited. People who are studying deaf education in college RIGHT NOW, are being taught that cochlear implants cause the kids continual pain and that they can not swim or shower! They are also being taught that kids with cochlear implants will never feel a part of either the hearing world or the deaf world, that they will be shut out of both. That is not what we have witnessed. We have seen kids interacting with their hearing peers and able to be a part of their own neighborhoods, church groups and community sports teams. When I tell people who are unfamiliar with deafness that my son is deaf, I have had questions like "Does he use braille to read then?" Even after I explain to them that Chance has a cochlear implant and that he can hear, people will tell me that they don't know sign and talk to me so that I can talk to him. At the camp, other parents expressed that even people that they had lived around for a year and a half would ask if their son could hear things. One of the camp counselors, who is studying deaf education herself, admitted that what she witnessed at this camp essentially contradicted everything she had been taught in college about cochlear implants and deaf kids and their ability to hear and talk.

The general public has virtually no experience with deaf people who can hear. I feel like Chance and other deaf children are blazing the trail. In 10 to 15 years, I believe that there will be more awareness about deafness and more deaf people who are in the mainstream of society working and socializing just like any other person does. Right now seems to be the time of awareness, when kids like Chance will show people just what deaf people are capable of.