Cochlear implant

A surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss by directly stimulating the auditory nerve, bypassing damaged hair cells in the cochlea. Unlike hearing aids, which amplify sound, cochlear implants convert sound into electrical signals. The device consists of an external processor worn behind the ear and an internal receiver implanted under the skin. Cochlear implants are a significant but sometimes contentious technology in the Deaf community — while they enable many people to perceive speech and environmental sounds, some Deaf advocates view them as reflecting audist assumptions that deafness requires medical correction rather than social accommodation. In accessibility design, cochlear implant users have distinct audio perception characteristics: they may perceive speech well in quiet environments but struggle with background noise, music perception, and sound localisation, requiring different accommodations than hearing aid users or profoundly deaf people.