Week IV: Ethics and Audiology...(Additional Post)

This week we spoke about copyright laws, plagiarism and the ethics behind it all. Copyright laws and the copyright symbol are seen very often and we think we know about them. Up until this week I had a poor representation of what copyright truly is. I didn't realize that it was put in place to protect the author of the original work and that it extends to literacy, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other published and unpublished works (www.copyright.gov). Under copyright laws, ideas and non-tangible work is not covered but they are covered in plagiarism. Plagiarism is stealing or passing off the ideas or words of another as their own (plagiarism.org). Ethics come into play because we must educate children and students that it is ethically wrong to commit fraud by using someone else's work and claiming it as your own. I feel that I intuitively know this, but I was most likely educated about it as a young age. Not all students have this opportunity so I feel that this is a subject that must be expanded upon in the school system.

This video is a bit long but it will bring you on a roller coaster ride of emotions and will provide you with one of the many opinions of a Deaf individual in regards to altering the auditory status of a child. The man in this video is talking about making his hearing child deaf. This story is meant to parody to the cochlear implant controversy over whether or not if is the parents' choice to give their child a cochlear implant to make their deaf child hearing. This is a booming technology that is continually improving. This topic causes great controversy in the Deaf world among those with hearing loss and their families (hearing or not). Many people that are Deaf feel that implanting a child before they can make that decision on their own is abuse. My position wavers frequently when I think about my stance on it but in the end, I feel that it is the decision of the child's family and although at times the audiologist may disagree, it is not their child to make the decision for.

The terms "copyright" and "audiology" don't seem to confront each other very often. However, I can see possible issues when administering common tests or sharing information to students and clients. In several classes, I have been exposed to several methods that audiologists or speech language pathologists have created for their clients. This includes questionnaires that they create administer, games that they have created, written materials they provide their clients, etc. My teachers always give credit where credit is due, though. Ethically, an audiologist should not take credit for a test or material made by someone else. When observing in audiologists' offices, I have noticed that they share information with their colleagues and borrow great and useful items from each other. This is important because it allows one audiologist to allow another audiologist a more efficient and effective method of doing something. I have always seen these audiologists give background to their patients by saying, "A great audiologist named _____ told me that if you turn the music on this level.....etc". Just like any other field, it is important that we not take credit for other people, direct people to the correct sources to receive information, and share but protect anything that we create so others cannot benefit without the creator also benefiting.