Adrienne Roberson
November 7, 2012
EDDE 415
Interview
I interviewed a teacher I knew from UT who is Deaf. When we started talking I
asked him, were you born deaf or did you become deaf after birth? He told me he was
born hearing and became deaf later with progressive hearing loss. So I asked him,
since you became deaf after birth what was the cause of it? He told me Etiology was the
cause as far as he knew. He said it is undetermined but his mother suspected it was a
case of measles when he was three years old.
We then started talking about how he communicated as a baby and how his
parents reacted to his deafness. He said as a baby he used speech only since he was
post-lingually deafened. Then he said his parents never let on that they were upset or
worried, but his Mom did take him to several specialists and got him fitted with hearing
aids. He also said he was sent to a summer camp ran by a speech clinic for six weeks
at a time, annually from age 5 to 10. He said he can imagine how sending him to camp
was hard on his mother but she never let on about it. Then he told me that after Public
Law 94-142 was passed (Education of Handicapped Act) his mother was able to obtain
speech services in his school for him. I asked him, how did your parents communicate
with you? He told me speech only, although his mother did try to learn sign language
when he was a teenager the problem was that he lived in a rural area so there were
practically no Deaf people to interact with so she did not succeed. He still
communicates via speech and sometimes note writing if it became too difficult.
We then moved into talking about phonology, lexicon, grammar, and
communication. I asked him to thinking about these four words and if he remembers
how they were used in his language learning. He said he had the typical regular
education experience and went through pretty much the same curriculum as his hearing
peers: starting with letter identification, phonemic awareness, using basal readers,
moving to regular (trade) books, penmanship, learning to spell and define vocabulary,
taking English lessons (which mostly focused on writing skills including grammar), doing
presentations in front of class and he said that yes he spoke aloud. In terms of ASL, he
never really paid any attention to any of the four things as he was just trying to use it to
communicate with his peers. Formal instruction in ASL was a waste of time as far as he
was concerned. He said he took a sign class for two weeks before he dropped it
because he was learning faster outside of class with his Deaf peers. His formal
knowledge of ASL structures did not develop until he became a teacher of the deaf and
took workshops. He said everything just came together and he was able to use his
knowledge of English as a contrast to similar structures/functions in ASL. I then asked
him if there were any of the four that were hard for him. He said oddly enough he could
never really grasp all the labels they had for grammatical/syntax structures and he
never needed them to succeed as a writer. He said the reason is because he was a
prolific reader and wrote according to what looked right based on his reading
knowledge. None of the others were ever a problem and fortunately he was able to hear
enough to communicate and learn the nuances of social communication. With ASL, it
was the opposite; I actually understand the linguistic structures used no problems with
any of the four areas. His favorite area is discourse analysis.
The next thing we talked about was how he learned to sign and communicate with
other children. He said he learned ASL at the age of 18 when he started college. He
said he was surrounded by Deaf people 24/7 so he picked it up readily. He said there
were a good number of peers just like him who also started learning ASL there also. He
told me most of them became proficient bilingual ASL and English users. I then asked
him to talk a little bit about growing up deaf. What kind of school he attended and what
kind of services he received? He said he remained in the local schools in his hometown
until he graduated from HS. During his elementary years he said things were good. He
did not have difficulty until he entered junior HS (now called Middle School) with so
many different teachers and classes and in a much larger school. He did manage to
adapt well enough but it was not an optimal communication environment. He said the
only services he received were speech therapy, which did not start until he was in 5th
grade after the law mandated special education services (P.L. 94-143). He said he did
okay. He considered himself pretty normal and did pretty much the normal adolescent
things that boys do. He participated in sports but not in leadership/student organizations
until college. I then asked him where he attended college. He said he attended National
Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) at Rochester Institute of Technology. He majored
in Biology and got his B.S. degree. He said those were the best years of his life.
The last subject we talked about was his children. I asked him if he had any children
and if they were deaf or hearing. He told me he had a daughter age 7 and a son aged 4,
who are both hearing. I asked him how communication between them was. He said
communication is somewhat interesting. He said he would call it a mixture of ASL and
spoken language with a lot of shifting between the two. He said his kids are still learning
ASL and English. Receptively they have little trouble understanding ASL but still
working on expressive skills.
This assignment was really interesting to me. I learned a lot about how this teacher
learned communication. His story is so interesting compared to some other deaf people
I have talked to. This teacher really grew up “hearing” as a deaf person. I think it is
unusual how he did not learn to sign until he graduated high school and started into
college. For him I am glad he eventually learned ASL so communication will be easier
for him even though he seemed to do well before he learned ASL. I am glad I chose this
person to interview because it has really opened my eyes to how deaf people really get
a long in life in regards to communication and learning language.