Before I was diagnosed with autism, I found myself frustrated trying to understand other people. People would say something and somewhere between my ears and my brain the signals would get crossed.
For example:
“Sure, I would love to go to the library,” she said.
VS
“Sure, I would love to go to the library,” she said sarcastically.
For example:
“Sure, I would love to go to the library,” she said.
VS
“Sure, I would love to go to the library,” she said sarcastically.
In the first sentence, it is clear and concise, it could mean anything. In the second it means the exact opposite of the sentences literal meaning. To me, if both sentence were said in a different way, they both would still mean the same thing. People would have to correct and it isolated me. In community college I was struggling for understanding. So I decided to take a language, American Sign Language. According to an article in the Frederick News Post(seen here) my local news paper, approximately 1.2 million people are deaf. Washington DC hosts a famous deaf college, Gallaudet University, and Frederick Maryland has one of the campuses for Maryland School for the Deaf. I had walked past the gate, I had seen translators at plays, I worked at Panera Bread where I would see people sign every day. If I was honest, I was enamored with the movement, how graceful and direct it seamed. So, I walked into the class, eager to learn. I learned that they communicate with expression, movement, and speed. They are proud of their language and culture. The culturally deaf are just that, a culture.
While I was researching, in both the book and literature, there was a major consensus: deaf people do not need to hear. In class I would have to adjust to processing the input with no auditory back up. This is how these people begin their lives, looking and learning. According to the Linguistic Society of America(seen here), children begin learning phonemes and sounds around 6 months of age. This can be seen as a reason to introduce hearing assistance through technology at this early. However, this skill of learning is not just associated with sound. Research from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders(seen here ) reports that children that learn sign language in a hearing family at an early age are just as fluent as children raised in a deaf family. In an interview(seen here) with Australian Deaf parents, they show the children responding and signing in response.
Major surgery is required for a cochlear implant, without even considering the factors of complication. The device is in two pieces, an internal electrode that uses electronic pulses to stimulate the auditory nerve directly. The second piece is a microphone and a speech processor and a transmitter. They can be made unilateral, one sided, or bilateral, two sided but no research on the difference between these two options has been done at this moment. A child as young as 12 months old can be implanted as of 2000. Medicaid covers the implantation of cochlear implants as well as publicly provided insurance. According to Healthy Hearing(seen here), to be an appropriate candidate for cochlear implant as a child you must follow the following criteria:
These are important features for us to understand in the choice of this surgery as those we are talking about are children as young as a year old. How can individuals as young as an infant understand the effort of understanding the use of a device connected to their brain? How can a medical professional decide for another human how they communicate. Along with those born with congenital deafness, there are also diseases and accidents, such as meningitis that can cause hearing loss(seen here). The older individuals can use the supplementary device to continue their education in speech but there is no requirement.
Cochlear implants are, foremost, a device to supplement deafness, not a cure. According to an Insider(seen here) interview with several different individuals with different backgrounds revealed that some people are shunned for their use of implants whereas others are accepting of this tool. Something that struck me as odd from the book(seen here) was a quote from one of the parents at the beginning of one of the chapters, though it was written in the early 2000’s, felt pertinent to me, “She’s still deaf but she talks now.” Serious surgery for a device that supplements life but does not sustain it.
Like many of the situations we have talked about, perspective needs to be taken when it comes to promoting something to a community like the deaf. To them, there is no problem with being deaf. It is a language issue. Believe it or not, the United States has no official language, therefore, knowing your community and being prepared to communicate with them or at the very least be proactive and provide protocol for assisting these people feels more equitable.
The biggest struggle I had with this presentation was fighting my own mind. Questions would be asked of me and I would think “But that isn’t fair, they can’t help it, it isn’t their fault if the device doesn’t work, if people still isolate them, or if they don’t speak. There is no reason for them to adjust to you because you are the majority.” I know where that bias comes from, it comes from the fact that I had to work to be as “smart” as I am today. When I was in elementary school, I wasn’t allowed to go to recess and spent it doing work in the classroom that everyone else had finished. People who finish their work got to play, they were “normal.” That resentment, that chip on my shoulder, has colored my opinions. There are days I stutter and there are days that I can’t speak at all. The deaf community has a leg up on me, they made the world accept them, where I don’t know where my line of. Forgive me if I come off as a bit in awe of that determination.
Here is an interview with some common questions asked of deaf people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuCx5N5VAZk
Here is a helpful playlist from a deaf Youtuber.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72HS6nTgeOE&list=PLhADVL2AiGX-UoiAtnf5_udAB4FMMB5b-
Fascinating, the connections between language, culture, self-image, identity... Did you find that same ambiguity of statement and understanding in the deaf community and ASL as in English communication? So much of "meaning" really does depends on shared practices tacitly understood, as Wittgenstein (among) others pointed out.
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DeleteEven with my difficulties with expression and understanding communication, the movement and punctuation of expression is exaggerated and clear enough to overcome my own disability. Learning the meaning of the expression was enough, in a one on one conversation, to understand meaning and context. More than one person and I get overwhelmed like conversations with a group of hearing people. I still appreciate the community.
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