sasha_feather (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sasha_feather) wrote2010-01-13 05:06 pm
sasha_feather) wrote2010-01-13 05:06 pm
Entry tags:
I continue to criticize National Geographic
[unlocked at DW, locked at LJ]
Bionics by Josh Fishman
...
But another bionic device has shown that the marriage of mind and machine can be both powerful and enduring, having been implanted in nearly 200,000 people around the world during the past 30 years. That device is the cochlear implant, and Aiden Kenny is among the latest recipients. Tammy Kenny, his mother, remembers when, a year ago, she learned that her baby was beyond the help of hearing aids.
"I would just hold him in my arms and cry," she says, "knowing he couldn't hear me. How would he ever get to know me? One time, my husband banged pots together, hoping for a response." Aiden never heard the noise.
He hears banging pots now. In February 2009 surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital snaked thin lines with 22 electrodes into each cochlea, the part of the inner ear that normally detects sound vibrations. In Aiden, a microphone picks up sounds and sends signals to the electrodes, which pass them directly to the nerves.
"The day they turned on the implant, a month after surgery, we noticed he responded to sound," Tammy Kenny says. "He turned at the sound of my voice. That was amazing." Today, she says, with intensive therapy, he's picking up language, quickly catching up to his hearing peers.
All is takes is one click to Wikipedia to find out that there is a history of controversy around cochlear implants, because some in the Deaf community view them as a threat to Deaf culture and a way of "fixing" something that is not necessarily seen as a problem.
What I find more disturbing is that the above paragraphs focus on the emotions and desires of the presumably able-bodied parents, and there is no mention of what the child may need or want. It also plays into the trope of deafness as HOPELESS TRAGEDY. Well gee, people, maybe you could learn sign language.
Dear National Geographic, maybe you should hire better reporters.
OH FOR CEREAL.
Bionics by Josh Fishman
...
But another bionic device has shown that the marriage of mind and machine can be both powerful and enduring, having been implanted in nearly 200,000 people around the world during the past 30 years. That device is the cochlear implant, and Aiden Kenny is among the latest recipients. Tammy Kenny, his mother, remembers when, a year ago, she learned that her baby was beyond the help of hearing aids.
"I would just hold him in my arms and cry," she says, "knowing he couldn't hear me. How would he ever get to know me? One time, my husband banged pots together, hoping for a response." Aiden never heard the noise.
He hears banging pots now. In February 2009 surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital snaked thin lines with 22 electrodes into each cochlea, the part of the inner ear that normally detects sound vibrations. In Aiden, a microphone picks up sounds and sends signals to the electrodes, which pass them directly to the nerves.
"The day they turned on the implant, a month after surgery, we noticed he responded to sound," Tammy Kenny says. "He turned at the sound of my voice. That was amazing." Today, she says, with intensive therapy, he's picking up language, quickly catching up to his hearing peers.
All is takes is one click to Wikipedia to find out that there is a history of controversy around cochlear implants, because some in the Deaf community view them as a threat to Deaf culture and a way of "fixing" something that is not necessarily seen as a problem.
What I find more disturbing is that the above paragraphs focus on the emotions and desires of the presumably able-bodied parents, and there is no mention of what the child may need or want. It also plays into the trope of deafness as HOPELESS TRAGEDY. Well gee, people, maybe you could learn sign language.
Dear National Geographic, maybe you should hire better reporters.
OH FOR CEREAL.
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But yeah, I pretty much count on mainstream media to deliver out-of-date and offensive attitudes. The Media Dis-n-Dat blog is maintained by B.A. Haller, Maryland professor who's been eyeing the disability-and-media-beat for ever. Occasionally she finds something positive to report. Every once in a while. Sometimes.
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