There are few things more heartwarming than videos of children with deafness gaining the ability to hear, showing them happily turning their heads at the sound of their parents’ voices and joyfully bobbing to newly discovered music. Thanks to recent advances in gene therapy, more kids are getting those sweet and triumphant moments—with no hearing aids or cochlear implants needed.
I wrote a paper on the whole reddit 3rd party app fiasco and because of the accessibility issues being raised I spent some time reading through r/blind and r/deaf. I didn’t find it in the blind community but the deaf community seemed to have very strong opinions about medical interventions to restore hearing, and a lot were vehemently against it in all cases.
I think technology like this will be a contentious issue for them.
I mean, I assume that when someone’s an adult, they can be re-deafened if they want if their parents restored their hearing (at least in medical terms. I don’t know if it’s legal for someone to have a doctor make them deaf).