Oh my goodness me, I need a rant!!

I’m not sure if I should name the website, but I found the following Question and Answer in a FAQ article today about CI’s:

What are options other than a cochlear implant?

For patients that are profoundly deaf, the only other option is sign language.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!

No! No! No! No! No!

I am very much in the FOR camp when it comes to Cochlear Implants. I am still in the early stages of Switch On so I can’t comment myself, but I know plenty of people who have had a CI and it was the very best thing in the world. For the right people, the CI can be absolutely amazing, and life changing.

But for the Profoundly Deaf people who choose not to have an implant? The Profoundly Deaf people who aren’t suitable for one? The Profoundly Deaf people who can’t decide?

There are far more options than sign language thank you very much! My regular readers will know that I sign to my Deaf friends, I love sign language as much as the next sign language user but it is far from the only option.

Communication by voice is perfectly do able, even for those who don’t wear any form of hearing aid at all. We can be understood, heck, we can even have clear speech! Dare I say it, we can work perfectly well in the Hearing world without sign language – the hearing world does not always adjust to us, but we always have adjusted to them.

I am SO cross to have read this. It was written in April 2000, so just a teeny bit outdated, but even for an FAQ article written nearly 9 years ago, it is so SO WRONG!

Grrrrr!