Experiences, networks and uncertainty : parenting a child who uses a cochlear implant

Parents’ actions figure centrally in the questions of how deaf and hard of hearing children learn language in social encounters, are educated and participate in society. Definitive answers to these issues continue to be disputed in the wake of technological advancement. The present dissertation explores parenting a child with a cochlear implant and how hearing parents as individuals and in groups experience their new world. In this study, Adams Lyngbäck examines the everyday life of parents and the situations where they encounter the different use of senses. She shows how parents in sensorial differentness make sense and make meaning about language, technology, deafness, disability and activism. Adams Lyngbäck demonstrates that parents face dilemmas extending from cochlear implantation which figure in how they continuously consider possibilities in the futures of their children. How parents deal with uncertainty in their lives and transcend the conflictive atmosphere is considered in terms of a social literacy based on examples of in-depth lived experiences of disability and parenting. Liz Adams Lyngbäck holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Kentucky, a Folk High School Teacher Education Degree from Linköping University and a Master of Science from Stockholm University. Her research interests include language and culture, social science of health and illness, critical disability studies, Deaf studies and social justice education. This book is her doctoral dissertation in Education at Stockholm University.