Will Deaf Culture Die Out Someday?

There is always a possibility that Deaf culture could die out and this is dependent on a variety of factors with some of them going against the spread of Deaf culture and its language, ASL. But at this point it's probably more of a matter of "if" and not "when." Then again that's subject to change.

One of the biggest factor that could affect the outcome on the survivability of Deaf culture would be the fertility rate among married Deaf couples whose deafness genes would be passed onto their deaf offsprings, thus enabling the continuation of their Deaf culture through ASL. According to this latest genetic study it has shown that through "mixing" that Deaf culture is able to survive and grow in this manner but it also comes with a caveat.

In the United States, 80%–90% of individuals with profound deafness currently marry a deaf partner;39 however, the introduction of cochlear-implant technology is profoundly altering the mating structure of the deaf population. By facilitating oral communication and educational mainstreaming, substantially all of the deaf children of hearing parents will be redirected into the hearing mating pool. Even if all of the deaf children of deaf parents eschewed implants, continued to learn sign language, and mated assortatively, the size of the pool would decrease dramatically...

In other words even if they shun cochlear implants completely and continue with ASL the size of the Deaf pool would decrease over time simply because of the introduction of cochlear implants has drastically altered how mating is done. And increasingly many would prefer the hearing group because CI users are able to interact much more readily with the hearing society through talking and listening versus a Deaf community.

The study goes on with even further with another caveat.

On the other hand, if deaf couples begin to embrace cochlear-implant technology for their children, the pool size will continue to decrease, eventually resulting in the substantial disappearance of the deaf culture.

It seems that technology (i.e. cochlear implants and hearing aids) exerts a great deal of influence on mating preferences which brings me to this. The inexorable march for the cure and restoration of hearing loss.

This march for a cure through stem cells and other biotechnological advances may in fact provide the final blow on whether Deaf culture and its society can survive. Technology is already recognized as one of the limiting factor on the spread of Deaf culture, the community and ASL. Imagine the further downward spiral of Deaf culture and its society once people with hearing loss gets treated with a biomedical cure which will alter drastically the mating structure in a population faced with less and less people with hearing loss.