Cochlear Implants & the Mediated Classroom-Clinic: Communication Technologies and Co-operations Across Multiple Industries

Abstract

Keywords

deaf education, cochlear implant, technology, medicine, controversy

Abstract

This article considers the ways in which cochlear implantation, as a form of mediated communication, is altering deaf education classrooms and programs. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, I use a case study of a "model program" to illustrate how one deaf education program integrates implant technology and the regimens of healthcare systems into day-to-day school life. Data show the constellation of multi-institutional co-operations in deaf educational programs that have occurred with the routinization of pediatric cochlear implants (CIs) and concurrent technological developments in assistive listening devices. In the analysis, I propose new questions that should be asked as this highly sophisticated iteration in the history of auditory training continues to grow.