Throughout the show, Daphne speaks without even a trace of a deaf accent, and has 100% speech discrimination-- she's able to talk to people without lipreading or even looking at them, and understands them perfectly all the time, even at a noisy college frat party. In reality, Daphne, would probably have a language delay due to the months she went without hearing, resulting in an increased likelihood of deaf accented speech. Further, the fact that she would've been implanted in the late 1990s would mean that her implant technology wouldn't have as advanced speech processors as exist today, making sound-only word recognition difficult, and nowhere near perfect. Check out this link to hear simulations of speech and musich through CIs with up to 20 channels. Even children implanted today (more than a decade after Daphne would have received her implant) with much more advanced technology and new speech processors do not necessarily achieve flawless speech or sound discrimination.
So why does it matter if TV misrepresents CI technology? It's just a fictional show, right? In part, it's such a big deal because Switched has been so accurate on other aspects of deafness, and its viewers have come to expect and trust that accuracy. After carefully building up their credibility, the series misused its authority and misled its viewers into thinking a cochlear implant is a quick fix. The fact that the show makes no mention of the hard work Daphne would have had to put into speech therapy and learning to listen through an implant just furthers the mainstream myth of this "miracle cure."
We love Switched at Birth, and we think it's a good idea to have a character with a CI on the show to demonstrate even more variation within the d/Deaf community, but we expected better. In the meantime, here's hoping some fans will do a bit of research on the subject.
I completely agree with most of this article. CI's were advertised throughout the show as this kind of "miracle cure" that they simply are not. Daphne's speech perception and production were "perfect" throughout the show. The technology even in the late 90's (when she would have been implanted) didn't provide a large number of channels..they honestly still don't. The show did not address this at all.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Daphne had JUST lost her hearing when the Kennish family got custody. Assuming there wasn't a long legal battle over the decision to implant her (probably not) and she got implanted soon after the Kennish family took custody, her speech could have stayed pretty good. It still would have required tons of work/therapy, which the show neglected to mention, but a high level of speech production would be possible, as a child who was hearing and only completely (audiologically) deaf for a short period of time.
Uh, no. She would have been implanted having just lost her hearing. She was born hearing and lost her hearing to meningitis, right before the episode was supposed to have begun. The results with a CI in that situation would be excellent. She would have absolutely no reason to have a "deaf accent", and many kids implanted do not have one.
ReplyDeleteAlso, they were implanting the 22-electrode Cochlear brand implant starting in 1989.
Here is a video about the first CI kid in North America. He speaks great,and talks on the phone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Rd6B0-6OP4
It's a good point that MK brought up that Daphne would have heard when prior which would've therefore made her an especially good candidate for successful implantation. That being said, all the criticisms of the episode still stand (if you actually read the piece, you'd know that I never suggested that a person with a cochlear implant couldn't "speak great" or talk on the phone) I only said that it's unlikely that a person with a cochlear implant could hear 100% perfectly at a noisy frat party without any supplemental speechreading information or even asking someone to repeat him/herself once.
DeleteAs for this video, Casey seems very successful; of course, I'm deaf, so I can't hear his voice, but I'm told that he has a slight deaf accent. That's not anything bad, it's just that this is not how the technology was portrayed on Monday night's show. Further, Casey's video made mention of the hard work he had to go through to learn to hear again and practice speaking; Switched at Birth didn't.
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DeleteThe line you hold in contention has been edited in light of the links you provided. We apologize for the confusion, though a study from the House Ear Institute in the mid nineties states that most CI wearers at that time only had 4-8 USABLE channels, so you can see how and why our writer made this statement: http://www.hei.org/research/shannon/simulations/
DeleteUnfortunately your comment has been removed due to the mean-spirited nature of your accusations about our staff. We do not write from a place of malice or ill-will, and we do our research. We're not sure why you are so preoccupied with our site or why you feel the need to be rude to us, but, since you are a guest here, please keep decorum in mind.
Wasn't there a scene in which Daphne embarrassed herself in front of a guy she was trying hard to impress? The conversation was about the butterfly effect, and she thought he was talking about a movie. Something's missing - she's not able to really gel with others, and I think that's clear in this episode. She has no friends in this episode, when she's got plenty in other episodes. She looks miserable, seems to have a low sense of self-worth, and is doing crazy things that are not conductive to relationship-building.
ReplyDeleteIt's true, Daphne did somehow become a pretty shallow, awful person in this episode, likely stemming from feelings of isolation and the fact that she misses Regina. (Actually I'm surprised more CI advocates aren't angry about that portrayal of an angry, lonely, implanted teen.) However, the scene in which she embarrasses herself has nothing to do with her hearing, just with her immaturity. She thinks he's talking about "The Butterfly Effect" an Ashton Kutcher movie, whereas he's actually referring to "the butterfly effect" theorem, part of chaos theory as used in math and applied physics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect).
DeleteI agree with Margie. The guy even said he didn't recognize her without seeing the "thing" in her ear, indicating that he only remembered her as "that deaf girl" and did not consider her someone meaningful enough to date. Daphne looked uncomfortable, and soon after that she threw himself at him, desperate for any attention from him.
DeleteMy take is that the creators wanted to show that even under optimal conditions, with the CI being a smashing "success" for Daphne, it alone still isn't enough. Daphne isn't a hearing person despite what she or John believes.
I do have to wonder if the butterfly effect comment was a winking reference to FE: Butterfly Effect. :)
This episode is John's worst nightmare. It is what he thinks would have happened if they had found out about Daphne when she was 3. Daphne isn't angry and lonely because she is deaf or has a CI. She's angry and lonely because her family is super dysfunctional in John's nightmare. Also John wouldn't have a proper understanding of how CIs work, he would just think that if they had meet Daphne when she was 3 that their money would have fixed her deafness. The episode is what John thinks could have happened, not what would have happened.
DeleteConsidering the fact that ABC family has in the past been very accurate in their depictions of deaf culture and that this episode was supposedly taking place in Johns head (someone still considerably ignorant of CI) is it possible that the reason that Daphne appears to be fully hearing without a hint of deaf accent, is simply because it made more sense that way in Johns head? He wouldn't know that despite Daphne having implants and speech therapy, she would still sound stereotypically deaf, therefore a he imagined her to be "normal sounding". At least that makes more sense to me than ABC completely disregarding the actual outcomes of CI and all the work expended by people with them.
ReplyDelete