Month: January 2013

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Billy 2.0 – Why are some parents against cochlear implants for their children?

Cristina Hartmann
I’ve been trying for a long time to articulate my thoughts on this particular issue – in the end I found someone else had already answered the question with much more clarity and balance than I ever could. Her name is Cristina Hartmann, a writer based in the USA. Her thoughts are reprinted below from Quora with her kind permission.
I hope I’ll be able to offer a unique perspective that explains why the Deaf community resents CIs.
Let me establish my background and knowledge of Cochlear Implants (CIs) and the Deaf culture.I was born profoundly deaf in the early 1980s, so I learned American Sign Language (ASL) as my first language. Mind you, this is not as easy as it sounds. My family and I went to classes when I was 6 months old. I needed individual tutoring in the language daily because my family wasn’t fluent. Of course they weren’t fluent.
My family is like a large majority of deaf children’s parents: hearing. Continue reading “Billy 2.0 – Why are some parents against cochlear implants for their children?”
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Billy 2.0 – Blogging on the BBC

Billy and Barnaby on the BBC

Sorry for the lack of updates recently – in the last month I’ve celebrated my birthday, Christmas and danced in an RAF Uniform on New Year’s Eve.

When fellow BBC employee Damon Rose asked me to join him in Broadcasting House for an interview for the Ouch! podcast, I couldn’t say no.

I also wrote a new piece for them about why I had the implant, and where I am with it now.

There will be a transcript of the radio interview on the page as well, I believe. That contains a rather unorthodox hearing test and some interesting chat about whether deaf children should have cochlear implants…

I hope you like it.

Further reading:
Switching on my Hearing – BBC Ouch!
Interview transcript