Saturday, October 1, 2011

Biology Blog #1: Deaf By Design Reflection - October 1, 2011

Deaf By Design introduces the concept of Deaf Culture, and a brief genetic history of how children were born deaf.
First things first, about 20% of the time, deafness in the United States is caused by a mutation in genes for proteins called connexins 26 and 30. These proteins affect the ear's sound sensitive cochlea (See below).
File:Cochlea.svg
Above is a simple diagram of the cochlea, courtesy of Wikipedia.
With so many deaf people now getting married, and Deaf culture becoming more commonplace in the world, a lot of Deaf couples want deaf babies, and want them a lot over hearing babies. As a result, prenatal genetic testing is being used a lot more widely to figure out if the child is deaf.

Reflecting back upon this, I don't really think that's there is anything wrong with wanting a deaf child. And knowing how a deaf baby is made was really interesting. There are many different ways of becoming deaf, and I know someone that is progressively becoming deaf, because her hearing is deteriorating. However, it's not because of the mutations in her proteins.

The video, Sound and Fury, was also useful and relevant to the topic, because it showed good emotional and visual support for the article.

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