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How do people perceive deaf people?
I ask this question wanting to know what the implications are on having a positive and
negative understanding on deaf people. By doing research on certain papers and also having
my own experiences, I wish to answer this question and then follow up by talking about the
implications of having a deficit view of deaf people. I’ll mostly be talking about American
deaf culture.
The dictionary’s definition of Implication is “become aware or conscious of (something);
come to realize or understand.” In my paper I wish to discuss the understanding of deaf
people as a disability and cultural group, going into detail of the implications of what that
perception could do to the deaf people. Positive and negative, I want to explore both sides.
The term audist might be a term you have never heard before, audism is someone who feels
they are more superior based on their ability to hear, they may also have the theory that
not being able to hear is a miserable and meaningless life. Which results in a negative and
horrible stigma being planted onto the deaf people that come into contact with these
people.
There has been a stigma going around in America that audiologists are audist, the reason
some people think this is because of the growing popularity of hearing parents giving their
deaf children hearing aids or worse, a cochlear implant.
“Over 90% of children with hearing loss are born to hearing parents, most of whom have little
or no information about the Deaf Culture.” – Ryan McCreey, unknown.
This of course is not the case, many feel that it is since it means more money to pay out for
these expensive tools to hear, or many deaf people feel it’s to rid the child of their deaf
culture straight away. But after doing some research it’s actually because
“Cochlear implants operate very differently than hearing aids. A cochlear implant bypasses
the damaged hair cells by delivering electrical current directly to the cochlear, or auditory,
nerve. A cochlear implant presents a wide range of frequencies, regardless of the preimplantation hearing loss.” - Ellen A. Rhoades, unknown.
From a doctors perspective I can understand why the cochlear might be more
recommended for children especially since,
“Some speech sounds, such as "ed" or "s," are never heard by children with severe-toprofound hearing losses because hearing aids cannot make the sound loud enough, or
because there are no longer cochlear hair cells left to transmit the sound.
"Often when kids get a cochlear implant, the first change you'll see is the ability to pick up
the 's.' they hear these soft speech sounds--and it's so evident," Skinner said.” Susan
Boswell, unknown.
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So to recommend something which from a medical point of view is much better for getting
clear and better speech, this isn’t a bad thing of course but are people really aware of what
getting a cochlear implant means? By this I mean what they will hear and the risks involved.
Well I have a link in my bibliography titled video, which will take you to a web page and to a
video of what the cochlear implant sounds like.
If an adult was to undertake the surgery and get the cochlear implants, they would find it
much, much harder to adjust to how it sounds than a child. Other cons involved is the risks
of the surgery and the cost, damage to the face and ear could occur. The costing of getting a
cochlear implant can go to $50,000 and over.
Some audiologists have been saying that they cure deafness which enrages the deaf
community.
It is a shame that some are saying this but it’s not true, it doesn’t ‘cure’ deafness even if
they can hear, it will be a different kind of hearing to what hearing people hear, like for me
my hearing aids simply amplify the sound that my ears can just about pick up.
“Many medical professionals consider them an essential component of treating deafness.
Members of the Deaf community, however, consider the implants to be a direct assault on
their carefully nurtured way of life, which embraces deafness and cultivates cultural markers
based on the absence of the hearing sense.” – Peter Broad, 2012
It can be seen as just another disability and quickly written off as just being that and left in
the shadows, since it is. It is a disability, but at the same time, is it? Some deaf people would
say no but most would say yes but it’s a lot more than just that. You can easily give it that
name but you can’t say that’s all it is, since it has a healthy growing culture attached to it as
well.
“In mainstream hearing society we see deafness as a defect. By defining the Deaf
community as a “culture” deaf people are no longer a disabled group but rather a minority” Georgina Church, unknown.
By doing this it gives the deaf people more of an identity which is why so many deaf people
are very deaf proud, it’s because it’s who they are.
But since this is a hearing person’s world, deaf people may feel like an outcast and lonely
since without even meaning to be some can be audist and grow impatient with having to try
and communicate with someone who, as some would say is on a different level. It’s a lonely
place to have people around you not wanting to take the time to try and communicate with
you.
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But the deaf culture refuses to die, it grows in its values, its history, art and literacy. Sign
language meaning the main source of commutation within the deaf community it’s what
makes our community strong, the foundation of our language. It’s the thing that interest
people to learn about deaf culture, learning another language and it being with your hands
rather than your voice is a magical thing. Sign language is a phenomenon, it gives those who
were born without the choice to hear a chance to talk, to talk voice what they need to say
loud and clear with their hands, with the punctuation being in the face and the words being
gestured with the hands the visual language has changed the lives of deaf people.
But don’t think it’s just deaf people whom benefit from sign language, children, babies and
even adults with other disabilities will benefit from sign language such as autism.
Autism, the internet’s definition is;
“a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by great difficulty in
communicating and forming relationships with other people and in using language and
abstract concepts.”
So, people who already have a tough time being verbal in commutation now have the
chance to feel more at home with another way to talk with people, same for people with
Down syndrome,
“It appears that the combined use of signed and spoken input can boost early language
development significantly, this evidence coming initially from single case-studies, and more
recently from larger scale controlled studies.” John Clibbens, unknown.
It’s also worth mentioning that there are a lot of deaf plus children and adults which means
they are deaf plus, autistic or they have Down syndrome and so on, so sign language is a
really big help in unlocking a commutation block.
“I find that sign language often provides a bridge to support a child’s ability to gesture more
frequently and with greater complexity, and provides more information about the meanings
of words, events, concepts and relations.” - Michele Ricamato, 2008.
Even hearing babies, children and adults benefit from sign language, it’s always a great thing
to say that you know another language but by knowing sign language you improve your
interpreting and listening skills, it’s highly pushed that it helps your spelling since you’ll be
finger spelling a lot more than you do in a spoken language! It helps stop noise pollution
plain and simple, it also helps babies to learn sign from a young age since it’s much easier
for a child to pick up on a new language than an adult.
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I also want to talk about the rise in Universities such as the Southwest Collegiate Institute
for the Deaf which is in Texas, The National Technical Institute for the Deaf which is in New
York and also not forgetting Gallaudet University which is based in Washington D.C.
Gallaudet University is the only liberal arts college for the deaf and hard of hearing, it’s a
school that uses ASL (American Sign Language) as its main source of commination. Its classes
are taught in sign language and the essays that students hand in are handed in as a video of
them signing their essay to the camera. I was told this by my cousin’s one of which is a
student, the other is doing her PHD and teaching at the school.
Gallaudet is an amazing person who has changed the lives of many deaf and hard of hearing
people for opening a school which is mainly for deaf and hard of hearing, some hearing can
get in but they have to be skilled in sign language and have a career goal of teaching the
deaf or interrupting for the deaf. Gallaudet went to Europe to find ways to help teach the
deaf, which all happened because his of his neighbours nine year old daughter Alice.
The school was a safe haven for those whom may have been told they could never amount
to anything because they were deaf or hard of hearing, this school has done a fantastic job
on impacting the lives of so many deaf and hard of hearing people, more schools need to be
set up like Gallaudet. Once Gallaudet made it he had met the head of “Institut Royal des
Sourds-Muets, which was a school for the hearing and visually impaired. While there he’d
also met two of its deaf teachers, Laurent Clerc and Jean Massieu.
Gallaudet studied both sign language and methodology which he would then take back with
him to help deaf American’s who weren’t getting the education they needed, he convinced
Laurent Clerc to go back with him and help with opening a school for the deaf the very first
deaf school for America.
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Bibliography
Susan Boswell, unknown, in the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/Tuning-In-With-a-Cochlear-Implant/
Ryan McCreery, unknown, CochlearWar.
http://www.cochlearwar.com/forum/professional_view.html
Peter Broad, 2012, OEDC Library, Pages 169-179. http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/languagesin-a-global-world/cochlear-implants-deaf-culture-and-narrowly-defined-culturalcharacteristics_9789264123557-15-en
Video, 2014, the telegraph - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/10848586/What-the-worldsounds-like-with-a-cochlear-implant.html
Georgina Church, unknown. file:///D:/Downloads/492-988-1-SM.pdf
John Clibbens, unknown, down syndrome education. http://www.down-syndrome.org/reviews/119/
Michele Ricamato, 2008, two little hands production.
http://www.signingtime.com/resources/articles/autism-language/ ###
Jamie Berke, 2015, about health. http://deafness.about.com/cs/colleges/a/swcid.htm
Heather Sheffield, 2001, ASL University. http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pageslayout/gallaudetuniversity.htm
[Unknown], SWCID. http://www.howardcollege.edu/swcid/index.php/swcid.html
[Unknown], ITID. http://www.ntid.rit.edu/history
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
October 2012, Volume 42, Issue 10, pp 2027-2037. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803012-1452-9#/page-1
Brain and Language
Volume 80, Issue 1, January 2002, Pages 21–44.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0093934X01924988
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