Adrienne Roberson
Oct. 3, 2012
EDDE 415
Observation #1
My observation was an interview with a teacher I meet at TSD about how she
became Deaf. I first meet this teacher at a football game I attended there. There were
several of the UT interpreting and Deaf Ed. Students who wanted to purchase hoddies
from the team. I took on the role of collecting the order and meeting with her to pick up
the order when it was ready. While all this was going on I got to know her as a person a
lot better. Over the course of about three weeks I was seeing her about every other day
or texting her. During this time she was talking to me about my life and what I wanted to
do after graduation. She also told me a little about herself and her Deafness. One day I
was telling her about this observation paper and she offered to let me interview her
about how she became Deaf.
This teacher and her twin brother were born prematurely. Because of this they
were placed in an incubator for 44 days. She says that after reading an article in the
1981 newspaper about premature babies and how they should only be in an incubator
for a week they gathered that is probably why they became Deaf. They figure that the
extreme oxygen levels and there prolonged stay caused the damage to their hearing.
She said as babies her parents used lip reading to communicate with them. They did
not know they could not hear until we were 10 months old. Both of their hearing losses
were over 100. I asked her how her parents felt when they found this out and she said
they were devastated. Her parent’s way of communicating with them was lip reading.
Her and her brother used speech. They tried using hearing aids but they were useless.
I asked her to think about these 4 words (Phonology, Lexicon, Grammar, and
Communication) and if she remembers how they were used in her learning language.
She said she remembered phonology because she struggled to learn to write in proper
English due to the teacher using the oral method, not signing. Back then, they were
prohibited from using signing in class. She said she was not familiar with lexicon by
then. I was great with spelling words and good in grammar but they did not give us any
kind of challenge in writing skills. I did not notice my weakness in grammar until I was in
high school at a deaf school. She also said that all four of them were hard for them and
not beneficial. I asked her to talk a little bit about how they learned to sign and
communicate with other children. She replied, a student teacher shared with our parents
about sign language and the potential that my brother and I could benefit from it if we
use it. She shared with my parents about the deaf school. So, that was how my parents
decided to send us there. Our lives changed 100 %, our education started improving
dramatically, and our self-esteem showed more confidence. My parents eventually
decided to take sign language class also.
I then asked her to talk a little bit about growing up deaf. What kind of school she
attended? What kind of services she received? She said in her family atmosphere, there
were communication barriers. After we went to the deaf school, my parents got us a
TTY (teletype phone), TV closed captions, etc. Before having TV closed captions, I
usually watched late movies with my mother and she could not keep up in interpreting
what was going on with the movie, and I was frustrated as well. As the conversation
continued I moved into their college experiences. She said she went to Gallaudet
(College) University and her twin brother went to NTID and that is where they graduated
from. She graduated from Gallaudet when it was still a college.
As we were finishing up our interview I asked her about her family now. I asked
her if she had any children and if they were deaf or hearing. She told me she has one
son who is deaf from her husband’s side. Her son is the 4th generation in deafness. I
then asked her about her communication between the two of them, especially when he
was young. She said they have been signing to him since day one. Because of this his
ACT composite score is 28! She is very proud of him for this accomplishment. She also
told me he just re-took the ACT last week trying to gain more points. He is a senior this
year at TSD and hopes to attend Gallaudet University like his mother.
This assignment was very touching to me, to be able to hear a little about a Deaf
person’s life and how they learned to communicate and learn a language. In class you
always hear about Deaf children and their struggles with learning a language or not
having access to language at all until later in life, but this was a person that I knew and
could learn from. Her story is so fascinating especially since her and her brother shared
the story. I have always heard that twins always do or share a lot of the same things in
life, but never have I heard about twins being born prematurely and because of that
both of them losing their hearing. I am really thankful for this teacher allowing me to
interview her and learn a little more about Deaf people and their language learning
struggles. I am excited about all the other things this teacher will teach me as we keep
in contact.