Reframing Success and Contribution in AI-Augmented Systems

Parenting in the era of algorithms requires parents to navigate strong societal forces as well as expert systems that employ technology and data to manage caring. Children who are deaf or hard of hearing and their families may benefit much from such technology, but it also brings with it the competing demands of monitoring, emotional escalation, and the constant need to improve. These frameworks stand to misselitiate diverse forms of communication and the modality that so many deaf and hard-of-hearing people's lives revolve around in ways that subsequently shape parents' experiences, activism, or other parenting within narrow bands. As a result, the use of alternative theoretical perspectives becomes necessary in order to understand the diversity that exists amongst contributions by both children and their caregivers outside canonical measures of success.