Cochlear Implant

Children are Different – CI-children too

Throughout the past 10 years the number of Cochlear Implant operations (CI) in Danish hospitals has rapidly increased.

Over 95% of all parents giving birth to a deaf child choose to have their child operated so as to achieve a better hearing.

The aim is to have these children achieve an ability to learn the spoken language like those born with a normal hearing. In Denmark the operation has been available since 1993 and there is an estimated number of 400 CI-children in the country.

Have Come to Stay
CI-operations have come to stay and due to the technological conquests the technique and efficiency of the operations will continue to increase.

From DDL’s point of view it is not a matter of being either pro or against CI but merely about following the progress closely.

DDL hopes for and works toward there being as much supervision as possible in society in general as well as in schools and CI-centers recognizing that children are different and have different needs.

Fighting for a Differentiated Supervision
DDL work on gathering knowledge regarding CI. At present the training method of AVT (Auditory Verbal Training) is recommended to CI-children but several surveys show that some of the CI-children can benefit from using both the spoken language and signs.

- All children are different and this too goes for CI-children. Some CI-children will do fine in hearing institutions while others will be better off in specialized institutions. Some will benefit from speaking training only while others will need sign language and/or speaking supported communication. Yet again some will do fine in schools with hearing children while others will be better off amongst other CI-children, chairman Asger Bergmann says.

DDL too has published a paper regarding its stand on CI stressing that the association is not against CI-operations but at the same time wishes to eliminate the rumour saying that sign language/signs damages the ability of learning to speak.