[ref3808]

I have two children with HA's, both played basketball at various levels, youth, travel, AAU. Though I believe the risk of injury to be zero and they could have easily played with the HA's, they chose not to because sweat was too damaging to the HA. (a set of good digital aids is about $5,000 - $6,000 and not normally covered by insurance) Coaches were fine with hand signals to call plays, their teammates knew to make sure they were aware what was being run.

Only one official over many years, thinking that my son wasn't "playing the whiste" ever said "Son, are you deaf?". To which he replied, "No sir, just hard of hearing". The official couldn't have been more apologetic.

I have not had direct experience with CI's but I've read a lot about them. The substantial risk factor is not injury from the wire itself. Parents of children with CI's are usually advised to avoid contact sports, such as football, where head injury occurs with higher frequency. Internal damage from a blow might only be correctable through additional surgery. (the literature on this is pretty easy to find with a simple Google search) Of course I've seen my share of head-on-head contact during loose balls and kids going down during rebound action and hitting the floor hard. I can't quantify the risk from that.

Having had two hearinig impaired children I understand the importance attached to their participation in sports with their peers and "not feeling different" from the other children.

Having said all of that, it seems that the burden here is on the rules makers to determine if CI's are allowable.