Modern technology for deaf community and deaf culture - Research Paper Example

Modern Technology for Deaf Community and Deaf Culture Apparently, modern uses and adaptations of technology affected our society and various communities worldwide. It has catered positive effects especially on how we do things, more particularly on transportation. It benefits people around the globe, it saves time, lessens effort and sometimes brings the best out of what we see, we touch, or we hear. But what about those persons who can’t see, feel touch, or hear? In deaf communities, several deaf persons have engaged to various technologies and medical inventions and innovations in order to improve their way of living life.

Some of these technologies are the internet, the use of instant messaging, and captioning. Most say that applications and adaptations of medical technology for deaf individuals have helped a lot in improving the gapped communication between deaf individuals and have contributed to the quality of their lives. These medical innovations and adaptations are driven by “the underlying view of man presupposes the ideal of health, and everything is attempted to approach that ideal” (Calcagnini-Stillhardt 37).

A very common and well known example of these applications of medical technology is the cochlear implant. Cochlear implant is told the cure for deafness, as it is generally accepted as a form of disability. Another one is the application of genetic engineering which tackles the deaf person’s genes to somehow reduce or even eliminate a hearing defect. However, public attention and awareness is somewhat focused on the potential of the new medical technologies to alter the condition of deaf individuals in a point of view in a deaf community as expressed as a culture.

Here comes the argument on how technology, specifically on medicine, brings negative effects to some communities and societies that not all may benefit such medical adaptations and innovations. Consider one family with a deaf child, when parents develop the idea that these medical innovations could fix the problem or rather cure the disability of their child here goes the ideal that the presence of these medical innovations may take certain family’s time and individuality for their children.

The public feared of the elimination of deaf communities which has been brought to somehow improve the way deaf individuals live and interact with each other and also with normal persons. Deaf communities developed hand signals to be used as their medium in conversing with fellows. Deaf communities drive a single individual to feel like a normal person. Feeling normal is an important emotional strength. Passing for hearing may hinder opportunities to discover this other point of reference that awaits in the Deaf world (Woodcock 329).

What deaf individuals need is not implants and gene alterations to live normal but it is love, affection, and the feeling of belongingness to society that will make them live normal (Maranto 276). But, for Cohen (1994), it seems that these new medical technologies are intended not for totally eradication rather just a diminution on deaf communities. Thus he wrote: Is there a conspiracy to damage the deaf community? Are we attempting to eliminate deaf culture? To both questions the answer is ‘‘no.

’’ We are, however, inevitably going to diminish the numbers of young children who would otherwise enter the deaf community (Cohen, 2). New technology may offer positive answers for our needs but somehow, in the adaptation of such, all aspects affected must be considered. Consequences on implementing these technologies should be covered through various fields such as: psychology, sociology, theology and the culture itself. Bibliography Calcagnini-Stillhardt. Das Cochlear-Implant. Eine Herausforderung fu?r die Ho?rgescha?digtenpa?dagogik.

Luzern: Edition SZH, 1994. Cohen. “The ethics of cochlear implants in young children.” The American Journal of Otology (1994) 15.1–15.2 Maranto. Quest for perfection: The drive to breed better human beings. New York: Scribner, 1996. Marschark. (Ed.), Context, cognition, and deafness. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press. 2001: 179-198. Woodcock . Cochlear implants vs. Deaf culture? New York University Press, 1992: 325-332.