Made To Hear: Cochlear Implants and Raising Deaf Children

Based on accounts of an interviews with families who adopt the cochlear implant for their deaf children, this book describes the experiences of mothers as they navigate the health care system, their interactions with professionals, and the influence of neuroscience.  Though Mauldin explains the politics surrounding the issue, her focus is not on the controversy of whether to have a cochlear implant but on the long-term, multiyear undertaking of implantation.  Made to Hear reveals that implantation has the central goal of controlling the development of the deaf child’s brain by boosting synapses for spoken language and inhibiting those for sign language, placing the politics of neuroscience front and center.

Examining the consequences of cochlear implant technology for professionals and parents of deaf children, this book shows how certain neuroscientific claims about neuroplasticity, deafness, and language are deployed to encourage compliance with medical technology.

Laura Mauldin, Author

University of Minnesota Press