Thom, this is brutal reading. To say that the system is short-sighted and unfair is a massive understatement. I remember during my MSc someone telling me that you were a rockstar but struggling to find your next position—appalling that this never changed!

It's fantastic! @reeserichardson.bsky.social hit the nail on the head

Thank you! That means a lot. The thrust of this piece will obviously not be new to deaf people & allies, but I hope it'll be helpful in communicating the ideas more broadly!

Immensely grateful to all the researchers and families who gave up their time to share their stories with me for this piece. And stories like these always have a huge, invisible team behind the scenes – check out the amazing graphics, illustration and visualization of sound through an implant!

Many researchers and advocates say the answer is bilingualism. Sure, give deaf kids access to spoken language – but also make sure that they have a foundation for language acquisition in a language that's fully accessible to them: a sign language like ASL.

Kids who can't hear well, even though they have assistive technology, can be deprived of language access during the critical years when their brains should be soaking in language. That can have lifelong cognitive, social, educational and health consequences.

The sound from cochlear implants can be like a bad phone line. For some deaf children, that sound is not enough for them to acquire spoken language.

But around half of the professionals advising parents of deaf kids steer them away from sign language.