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Module 6: Technologies
Quick questions on Cochlear implant and Graeme Clark: HSC Investigating Science Module 6
10short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is the underlying neuroscience?Show answer
Sound is normally processed in the cochlea, a spiral structure of the inner ear. Approximately 16,000 hair cells line the basilar membrane and respond to different frequencies in a tonotopic arrangement (high frequencies at the base, low at the apex). When sound vibrates the basilar membrane, the hair cells convert mechanical motion into electrical signals carried by the auditory nerve to the brain.
What is clark's innovation?Show answer
Earlier single-channel implants (House, USA, 1972) delivered a single frequency to one nerve location. Patients heard a buzz but could not understand speech.
What is the first surgery?Show answer
The first multi-channel cochlear implant was placed in Rod Saunders, a profoundly deaf adult, on 1 August 1978 at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, Melbourne. Saunders could recognise speech immediately after the device was switched on.
What is commercialisation?Show answer
In 1981 the technology was licensed to Nucleus Limited (a subsidiary of Telectronics). The Nucleus 22 implant was launched commercially in 1982. The company was reorganised as Cochlear Limited and listed on the ASX in 1995.
What is controversies?Show answer
Deaf community criticism. Some members of the Deaf community criticise the cochlear implant as medicalising deafness, undermining Auslan as a primary language, and de-emphasising Deaf cultural identity. The debate continues about whether to implant deaf children of deaf parents.
What is deaf community criticism?Show answer
Some members of the Deaf community criticise the cochlear implant as medicalising deafness, undermining Auslan as a primary language, and de-emphasising Deaf cultural identity. The debate continues about whether to implant deaf children of deaf parents.
What is cost and equity?Show answer
The full implant procedure costs around 30,000 to 50,000 AUD per ear and is partially funded through Medicare and private health. Global access is far less equitable.
What is crediting Clark alone?Show answer
A team of clinicians, engineers and patients contributed. Robert Black, Yit Tong and Yit Chow contributed to the speech processor design.
What is ignoring the science?Show answer
Markers reward the link between cochlear tonotopy and the multi-electrode design.
What is treating commercial success as the only impact?Show answer
Social and medical impacts are equally important. :::