I have found the experience of losing my hearing utterly devastating. It hampers meaningful communication with others and has ruined my enjoyment of my beloved music. It renders simple things difficult and can sometimes be a genuine safety issue. Of course it's a scourge! And to blame others for their closed-mindedness is simply obnoxious. Being deaf is not an ethnic identity. It's not like being black. People can be less than understanding, it must be admitted, but they don't discriminate - they just don't realise the difficulties involved. Deafness isn't an identity, or at least it shouldn't be. It's the loss of a major sense. And I applaud anyone who tries to fix the problem. I don't want to identify as "deaf". I want my hearing back!

According to the dictionary, a scourge is "a cause of great suffering and affliction". So I will tell you, deafness is a cause of great suffering and affliction. That is my testimony!

Montgomery, I feel your agony. I know things are hard, but they will get easier especially with the support of the deaf community.

Hearing loss through CSOM is intergenerational in my family, and my partner's and my best friend's. It can cause such bad CAPD(a condition which is really misunderstood and underestimated by ear care professionals), that amplification is pointless. It is a lifetime challenge that requires more effort because sufferers have a fluctuating loss, so most audiologists don't understand how to measure it accurately - not all, though. The condition and a lot of others that cause different types of deafness are not recognized by the government, so there is no extra help for kids as they go through school or at work, or in employment, dealing with Centrelink, or when they are going through court or in interactions with the police or judiciary.

Did you know 20% of Australians have hearing loss and/or deafness?

Yet, there are so few services to help them - the government treats them like they are just like everyone else. Access and recognition to sign language support and skills is not available in most places and in some places, like in prisons, Auslan is seen as a security risk and potentially subversive. This is even though, in Alice Springs Correctional Centre 95% of Aborigianl inmates have ear disease or hearing loss - in Darwin Correctional Centre that drops to 92.5% of ATSI inmates who can't hear. Did you know that the hearing impaired kids are over-represented in the criminal justice system as victims and offenders? At Bandyup Women's Prison almost half of ATSI inmates have ear disease or hearing loss. Those are the only prisons who have tried to find out who is hearing impaired even though the Federal Senate Committee Inquiry into hearing recommended that all inmates in Australia should be tested for hearing loss to find out if they were mistakenly put in jail.

There is no doubt there should be better services for the deaf community and for any other group where there is a condition which requires different amenities from the 'norm'. (The norm being defined as the most common).

However surely a person who is endeavouring to minimise the impact of deafness should not be marked down so readily in their desire to help, even if inadvertently offending the deaf community by using the word 'scourge'. Sometimes it is too easy to become offended instead of looking at the intent. I also have a medical condition which I have to work around, thankfully it is well managed now but at it's worst could only be called a scourge. That is the fact of the matter and I would not wish it on any other.

There is always a choice to remain deaf if that is one's desire but many others may wish the freedom to be able to decide as technolgies and medical advances make themselves available. These decisions should not be imposed either way.

Who wouldn't want a cochlear implant. People with cochlear implants are card-carrying cyborgs, and you can't get much cooler than being a cyborg.

Well said, Pelican! I am simply flabbergasted that anyone would opt out of hearing, and I think it's disgraceful that a parent would impose deafness on a child by refusing them a hearing aid. As I've learnt to my detriment, the earlier one starts using an aid the more one can take advantage of it. Every effort should be made to help people hear, and when that fails then we must be accommodating and understanding. But the loss of a sense is undoubtedly a scourge and it's very ungrateful to attack someone who's helping people to overcome that scourge. I don't think I want to be part of a community that is so ungracious!

What a great response by Michael! He's given useful historical context to the current controversy. And he's right when he says that there are not enough stories, films or artworks bringing the deaf experience to the broader world.

As it happens, I am an oral-deaf person: in other words, I am deaf but I am of the oral education tradition, and have enjoyed the benefits of that education. At the same time, I very much identify myself as a deaf woman who is also many other things - a daughter, sister, aunt, friend, academic, work colleague, and writer to name just a few personas. We are all many people - AN Wilson writes of this quality by observing 'we all know that we can be as many as twenty people in one day . . .' - and yet this controversy about deaf identity continues to be pinned on the fixed notion that deaf people are deaf and nothing else.

While I sympathise with people who lose their hearing later in life and who hate that loss, I am unsympathetic to those people who turn around and criticise those of us for not embracing that hatred. My sense of deaf self is important to me, and I value it - along with the life experiences I have had as a result - very much.

As Michael wrote in his insightful article, such a debate persistently rears its head because 'deafness remains an unknown attribute of what it means to be human.' To be human is to be complex, complicated and contrary. And this is probably another reason why the controversy about what it means to be deaf will be ever thus.

Sorry - I should have been clearer, not everyone with a hearing loss can use a hearing aid. I guess it's lucky if you can, and then you can have a choice.
As a parent, I found it quite frustrating when my son wouldn't use one - I'm not hearing impaired and I didn't understand - but he has auditory processing delay and hearing aids aren't that helpful, even FM monitors kind of exacerbate that delay in getting what people have said, and then by that time the speaker has moved on to something else - it's still the same problem but just louder than usual.
My grandpop had a similar problem, and only ended up having one ear drum for life - nobody liked his tv being turned up so loud(and he didn't like all the noise from the half dozen yelling kids),but, if you can see what I mean, that was his choice.
Hearing impaired people - like everyone - have the right to choose what is good for them. They've been through and go through quite enough already without having more of their rights and dignity taken away from them by being dictated to. Oralism was forced on a lot of deaf people and though speaking can be helpful, it should just be an option - for some people learning it is too difficult and too traumatic. We can present options but at the end of the day - it's their life & their choice and we have to respect that just the same as if someone didn't want to use a prosthetic limb.
My son's friend got a cochlear implant for his toddler, then it wouldn't work and he is stuck with the same cochlear implant - not working - for life because it's implanted.
Hearing aids don't work for everybody and there are lots of different forms of hearing loss - more every day.

Michael I think it’s important to get a few things straight before you stick the boot in over an ‘alleged comment’.

Dr. Dornan has worked tirelessly for all deaf children to have the opportunity to learn to speak. Opportunity is the key word here - this isn't compulsory this is a choice.

She has always said that ‘deaf children will always be deaf and they should be proud of that’. There isn’t any back-pedalling there. To say this ‘nod to deaf children was so out of character’ is an insult – she has dedicated her life to working with deaf kids.

Dr. Dornan is right ‘deaf is not deaf anymore’. The technology available today means outcomes that were previously unachievable in speech and hearing are now a reality. The choices are different to 1880 which you use as a comparison of archaic values. Never before in our history has a deaf child had the opportunity to attain such clear language and comprehension skills and yet still be deaf.

How can you say that she sees deaf people as ‘helpless children’ and refer to hearing parents as ‘confused and vulnerable’?
Our daughter has cochlear implants and speaks perfectly – we were given our choices, we chose the auditory-verbal approach and are very happy with that choice.

Without Dr. Dornan we wouldn’t have had that choice.

To use a cochlear implant or hearing aids is a choice that not everyone has had in the past but it’s a choice that should be available now and in the future to those who would choose for their child to hear and speak.

How about we all wake up and acknowledge that there are now different choices of communication for deaf people and respect their chosen method.

Choice without prejudice.

We can all do more to better understand each other regardless of what language we use.