According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, cochlear implants are classified as “a small, complex device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or hard-of-hearing.” Cochlear implants differ from hearing aids in that they “bypass damaged portions of the ear and directly simulate the auditory nerve.”

Since being introduced in the 1980s, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration estimates the number of adults and children fitted for cochlear implants to be in the hundreds of thousands. However accessible cochlear implants currently may be, they are a hot topic of debate within the Deaf community. Some believe that it is cruel to have a young child fit for a cochlear implant and to endure everything that follows—speech therapy, for example—and some believe it is a personal choice that only the individual can make.

Decades ago, many people adopted what is referred to as the oralist approach, where medical professionals and parents of deaf children believed it best to restrict the child from learning sign language so that the child master spoken English as well as lipreading to develop as much language skill as possible. Deaf children in school are said to have been reprimanded by having their wrists bound or being forced to sit on their hands to keep from using sign language and focus on English instead.

The attitude toward an oralist approach for a deaf child’s education may be changing; some linguistic studies have shown there may be harm in restricting a deaf child’s acquisition of sign language in favor of spoken English. Despite this, the oralist approach still seems to maintain some popularity as well as the rise of people being fitted with cochlear implants.

So you will find differing opinions concerning cochlear implants and the view the Deaf community holds, and responses will vary depending on who you speak with.

Hearing aids, on the other hand, are not quite so contested. They come in a variety of colors and fits—my own hearing aid is neon purple—and are used to amplify sound for individuals experiencing hearing loss. As helpful as hearing aids have proven to be, in most cases they do not clarify the noise being amplified, so you may still have difficulty understanding conversation, like I do. As Maya pointed out in The Silence Between Us, hearing aids are a temporary solution to a permanent problem.

However we may view hearing loss, the fact remains that there is an entire community and culture shared by Deaf people becoming more prominent in society thanks to TV shows like Switched at Birth, movies like A Quiet Place, and Deaf activists such as actress Marlee Matlin and model Nyle DiMarco.