Thoughts after Reading an Interview with a Deaf Woman

I got as book from the Dutch library for the blind which is a collection of interviews with women with disabilities. One of these interviews struck a chord with me. It’s with a severely hard of hearing (nearly deaf) woman in her early thirties. Many things of what she describes have been similar for me and that makes me think about my own situation and the classic “deaf vs. blind” issue.

The first thing that caught my attention was this woman’s struggle to get a proper education. There appear to exist HAVO schools for the deaf/hard of hearing, but she could not attend one cause it was too far away. Her parents even had to fight to get a MAVO (lower level high school), cause the domestic science school would be too low-level for her. It was, however, assumed by the school that this woman wasn’t intelligent, which she attributes to her being the most severely hearing impaired in her class. That wasn’t the case in my school, cause the blind and partially sighted were educated in the same classrooms, but of course I know lack of stimulation in school. Eventually, however, this woman did go to college, and now she’s working as a social worker or the like.

Another thing that I can relate to, is the competition going on amongst the hard of hearing: this woman had the most severe hearing loss, so she was excluded from her peer group. I, however, don’t remember this happening much when I was still at the school for the partially sighted in Rotterdam: in fact, I don’t remember being a social outcast till third grade. The competition was far more evident at Bartiméus, but I don’t attribute my social trouble to that. This woman does say that deafness did have an effect on her social skills, in that she couldn’t pick them up as incidentally as the hearing do. I think the same goes for blind people, even though verbal communication is easier for us, but non-verbal is more difficult.

This woman also discusses the attitude her parents had to her and her deafness. She says her folks were very ambitious and they passed it on to her, but that her mother was also protective, not wanting her to try things she might not be capable of and even trying to get a hard of hearing nurse to convince her that a social vocation wouldn’t be good for her – which didn’t work, cause the nurse was very enthusiastic. This stuff has some similarities to what I feel about my parents, even though mine never doubted I could get any vocation I wanted (except for pilot and the like, of course). I still see that inadequacy: my folks are ambitious and hopeful with regard to my situation, but they don’t really know how I’m going to get there, I think. I’ve gotten a little more cautious when making assertions about what my parents think of me, because I don’t know how much of it is actually projection. However I do think I can say with certainty that my parents had much ambition for me, and they most certainly did pass that on to me – and I probably distorted it into something not quite healthy, but I’m still not sure of what all this expectations stuff is about. My parents let me do anything I wanted to and were not afraid to fight to have me participate in something. That’s something extremely positive that I value sincerely, cause it’s gotten me much experience. I greatly appreciate that.

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An Article on Disparity in Disabilities by a Deaf Woman

I just read this article from a website on deafness. In it, a woman argues that many deaf people have an “us vs. them” mentality because “the hearing world” tries to turn them into “normal” people by requiring speech therapy and lip reading, not allowing kids to learn sign language and by continually trying to pursue Cochlear Implants for all deaf people. She seems to think that non-disabled people are often harder on the deaf than on the blind, physically or otherwise disabled, because, as she states, one doesn’t expect a blind person to read print or insist a wheelchair user walks with cruthces “because everyone does so”.

I like the article, but for the sole reason that I don’t agree with it. The examples this woman gives about “hearing” behaviours expected of the deaf, to me aren’t comparable to expecting blind people to read print or wheelchair users to use crutches. I do agree that deaf kids should be taught sign language just like blind kids are taught Braille. And I think that in this respect deaf as well as blind kids are deprived of learning some skills: the deaf who are expected to speak and don’t learn sign language are deprived of the alternative communication mode that’s most useful for them, but the blind learn Braille (the “blind” reading and writing method), but they often don’t get instruction in things like handwriting. You may view it as odd that I think blind kids should be taught to handwrite, but at times they should be able to do so – for instance, they need to write down their names or signatures. I was taught handwriting, but that was because I was a low vision student in Kindergarten and grade one. Unfortunately, my handwriting deteriorated once I couldn’t see it anymore. I think, therefore, that it’d be difficult to teach blind kids handwriting (especially small handwriting, like in those horrible tiny signaure fields!), but I think it’s possible just like it’s possible to teach kids who can’t hear their own voices to speak.

As for deaf people needing to act like hearing people: that’s true for the blind, also. I mean, blind people rarely communicate non-verbally with each other, but we still need to learn to use non-verbal communication modes. I understand that – for instance, one needs to face another person when speaking with him so that that person can see one’s facial expressions -, but it’s an example of “forcing” blind people to act like the sighted. I’ve oh so often heard the words that “the sighted” don’t take a particular (visible) behaviour of “the blind”.

Lastly, the woman discusses Cochlear Implants. She says that she often gets the question why she doesn’t get one, as if a CI would be the magical cure for deafness. I can relate to this a lot: I don’t know how many people have asked me why I don’t just get glasses. They won’t benefit me, for I have no refractive error (my blindness is caused by a retinal disorder, and glasses can’t fix that). Now that I identify as blind, I get the question a lot less; probably people are aware that the totally blind can’t be helped by glasses. But when I still identified as partially sighted, I got the question sooo often and always had to say that I had too little sight for that (of course my sight would be correctable to some extent if it were caused by myopia, but I didn’t know any better).

I think that in general “the non-disabled world”, and especially those non-disabled people that are involved with the education and rehabilitation of the disabled, would want people with disabilities to act “normally”. And with deaf people this may lead to the idea that “just because they can’t hear doesn’t mean they can’t speak”, and with the blind it leads to the idea that “just because they can’t see doesn’t mean they don’t need to use ‘visual’ behaviour.” I find all of this to be appropriate, as long as it doesn’t go too far. And I’ve unfortunately seen it too often that it does go too far, so that alternative techniques are seen as inferior.

Astrid

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