What is the impact on Deaf culture of the growing number of people who are using these devices?
It has created an uproar in the Deaf community, to be sure, and a lot of bitter feelings. There has been some public outcry. A number of implanted kids have entered the schools for the deaf. How well has it been working out for them? Are they making good progress? Deaf children have been known to haze implanted kids mercilessly. Parents of implanted kids have been publicly confronted and excoriated by Deaf people. There has been name-calling, shouting, and a lot of online flaming. The CI has ideologically split the Deaf community, and has shaken up families. This was evidenced in the Aronson documentary Sound and Fury. The Artinian family, which has deaf and hearing siblings exposed to Deaf Culture, and deaf children born to the deaf and hearing siblings, was painfully divided on the issue. Do Deaf people feel insulted by the fact that so many hearing parents are willing to risk putting their children through surgery in order to eliminate deafness? Insulted, perhaps, but perhaps a more
