...it is implied that Deaf people are an inconvenience and that they are broken and need to be fixed. Deafness is not a disability, a disability is considered to be a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements or activities. The ADA (Americans with disabilities act) goes on to add that a disability “includes individuals who do not have a disability but are regarded as having a disability”. This means that disabilities are not necessarily a set concept rather it is largely influenced by the attitude towards whatever “disability”. People that are Deaf have become a proud culture, refusing to consider themselves handicapped because they can do anything any hearing person is capable of besides hear. The Deaf culture in America begins in the nineteenth century when French Deaf educators, Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc, came with the...
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...Nika Pickwoad Ms. Ruiz Deaf Culture November 18, 2013 Deaf culture #1) Sign language has been around for as long as its existence of deafness. Deafness, in the early centuries of American life caused many problems for those that were deaf. Doctors did not understand the root causes of deafness and books were rare at the time. Until the most recent years, doctors finally understand why deafness occurs and the deaf communities in the world today are being respected and admired, with the aid of American Sign Language. “ASL has many roots not only is it rooted in the French ideas, but also the ideas of the Great Plains Indians in America” (Butterworth & Flodin, 1995).The man responsible for bringing sign language to light in the United States is Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. Gallaudet studied the French ways and returned to America in 1817 where he founded the first school for the deaf in America, near present day Hartford, Connecticut. The college was appropriately named Gallaudet College, after Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. ASL is starting to be referred to as a foreign language. The reason for this growing idea stems from colleges and universities recognizing ASL as a success for foreign language credits in many college degree programs. “Gary Olsen former Executive Director of the National Association of the Deaf, referred to this notion of ASL as a foreign language as an American ground swell” (Butterworth & Flodin...
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...Introduction When a child is diagnosed as deaf, parents are faced with a critical decision to make in the first few years of their child’s life. Deafness as defined by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), means “ a hearing impairment that is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, that adversely affects a child's educational performance” (34 Code of Federal Regulations [section]300.8[c][3] [2013]). Parents can choose to either communicate with the child in English, the major language of society, or teach the child manual language such as ASL and become a part of the Deaf culture. This decision is especially hard for parents to make who were never exposed to the non-hearing world before, and see deafness as a medical problem that needs to be fixed. This can become critical for the child’s future years and development as a person in the society since the child will always be viewed and judged as different. It is mandated that each child with a disability will be viewed individually to make the best decision in how to treat and help the child. The oral approach, audism, is a method in which children learn to use whatever residual hearing they have, in combination with lip-reading and contextual cues. The children will also thus use an auditory approach, in which they receive amplification devices to correct their hearing and to make use of the residual hearing they have as much...
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...The Silent Society: Being Deaf Deafhood and Epistemology When considering the epistemology of deafness, one must consider the history of how deafness has evolved. The history of deafness comes from the ignorance of those who could not understand how people who had a disability were different from them. It was easier to place these types of “folks” in intuitions and not deal with their needs. Understanding the deaf community comes through understanding the culture and the history that allows the deaf to have a “voice” and provide them with the necessary services that make the deaf more human. Through mental health, hearing assessments, and trauma, there is an understanding that even though they may not live in the hearing world, there are still apart of society. How they function as a community is important, as they too have a voice. Deafhood is described as “static”, not a medical condition; however, it is a process-a struggle that is endured by every child, adult, and family to explain themselves, and each other their own existence within their world (Hauser, O’Hearn, Steider, &Thew, 2010). Epistemology can be defined as the philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits to human knowledge. When dealing with deaf epistemology, there are many facets to which it can be understood and misunderstood. The authors discuss the visual learning process that a Deaf child goes through by being raised by either a Deaf parent or a hearing parent....
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...Communication Essay: Deaf and Hard of HearingCommunication for deaf or hard of hearing people has always been veryfrustrating when trying to communicate with hearing people. Deaf people have tended toform deaf communities because of deaf pride, and a belief that they do not have adisability. However, this has led to a barrier between deaf and hearing people, and thesebarriers can lead to consequences because many hearing people do not know how tointeract with deaf people. Even people who are deaf or hard of hearing and that are notpart of a deaf community (such as if they chose to attend public school rather than aschool for the deaf) can have much difficulty when communicating with hearing people.Problems with communication occur all over the place for deaf people such as within afamily, in school, in the workforce.When a child is deaf, but his or her parents are hearing, it can create manyproblems with communication. If the parents have little or no experience with deafpeople, they will face challenges at first before they learn sign language and learn how toaccommodate their child. If parents don’t know how to properly communicate with theirchild, they will have problems raising them. With communication problems will cometrouble because they wont know how to scold their child or tell them when they are doingwrong, make their child feel included and a part of the family, and be a normal lovingparent. The sooner parents familiarize themselves with deaf culture, sign language, andall...
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...Deaf Culture and History “Deaf culture is exactly what Carol Padden defines as a culture: a set of learned behaviors of a group of people that share a language, values, rules for behavior, and traditions.” ("Deaf Culture” ¶4). Deaf people of the world have lived in a secret shroud for quite some time. Less than centuries ago, deaf people didn't even have an official language. Over time those who were deaf created their own culture and language. Deaf people have had their beliefs and language evolve throughout history into something that can allow people to break communication barriers. Contrary to popular belief, sign language is not universal. Different languages have different forms of sign language and here in America, deaf people use ASL (American Sign Language). American Sign Language derived from French Sign Language, which was brought to America to help teach deaf people (“History of American Sign Language”). Today, ASL isn't just a language, but it is a culture of people who care for each other. Deaf people encourage people to use ASL as it is...
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...SILA 306 ASL 2 What is Deafhood as respecting in the deaf culture? Deafhood is a term that loosely means a Deaf person finding and understanding their Deaf culture. This is not a static term and it usually refers to a process by which a Deaf person must go through in order to discover themselves and their roles in the Deaf community. Deafhood is a word that was coined by the author of Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood, by Paddy Ladd. With regards to deafness, the people of the past felt lost or upset with being deaf. The families of the deaf would force their children to go to a hearing school and assimilate with their culture. Schools would have to put labels on the children’s clothing to differentiate them. I think that these measures would make a child uncomfortable with his deafness. There were not many schools that a child can have access to so it would be understandable that the child will feel frustrated with himself about his situation. Ladd’s book asserts that deafness is a positive thing and that one should embrace their deafness. On a similar note, the deaf should not consider their inability to hear as a disease or handicap that needs to be cured. Deafhood is the understanding of how remarkable it is to be Deaf and be okay with that. These days with the internet and technology, it is easy for a child and his family to find a community near them. It is a lot easier to have a deaf person reach Deafhood, much like a normal child would reach...
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...On Deaf Culture Deaf culture is usually found in Deaf schools, and Deaf Clubs. Having Deaf culture depends on the person and how they accept being deaf. This is different for every deaf person, depending on their situation. At Deaf school is where culture begins. Here everyone is equal and they can interact with other deaf kids. This gives them a since of actually belonging somewhere. Hearing people see the Deaf schools as a dumping ground for deaf kids. When in actuality it is a place for the Deaf to identify themselves. Deaf of Deaf acquire their culture from infancy, but only about 10% are Deaf of Deaf, others get this culture from attending Deaf schools. And yet there are still others who are put in mainstream schools who aren’t exposed to Deaf culture until college or even when they start attending Deaf Clubs. Deaf communities consider themselves family and believe in taking care of each other, Deaf take care of Deaf. Deaf value Deaf of Deaf, they want to preserve deafness. While hearing people want to do away with deaf by cochlear implants and even hearing aids, are hearing people’s way of fixing their deafness. Deaf people do not need to be fixed. They are very capable of leading a normal life. They think this would destroy Deaf culture; besides cochlear may improve only environmental sounds but it does not cure deafness completely. To go with cochlear, oralism is not thought highly of either. Being forced to speak or learn to lip read is a waste of time to a majority...
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...Comparison of Deaf Culture and Hearing Culture in the USA | |(Using the Hofstede Cultural Comparison Assignment as a guide) | |Where Deaf Culture Would Score If Included in the Geert Hofstede™ Cultural Dimensions | | | |Nathaneil Godfrey | | | PDI Power Distance Indicator Power distance This dimension deals with the fact that all individuals in societies are not equal – it expresses the attitude of the culture towards these inequalities amongst us. Power distance is defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. It has to do with the fact that a society’s inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. http://geert-hofstede.com/ Deaf culture I think Deaf culture would score...
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...Many deaf people have been influential in the everyday life of an average deaf individual. While I was researching, I found one in particular that stood out to me. She was the first Miss America with a disability, she was deaf she was Heather Whitestone. She came to face many great challenges in her life, but she overcame them all. When Heather was just 18 months old she got influenza and had to be rushed to the hospital. She had an extremely high fever and was near death. The doctors gave her medicine which saved her life. Heather’s parents were informed that she would be back to normal in a few short weeks. It became prevalent to Heather’s mother when she dropped some pans a short distance from her that there was a problem. Soon after,...
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...American Sign Language, or ASL has long been associated with the deaf community, and for good reason, as it was created for those who are deaf, hard of hearing and hearing impaired. After officially being recognized as a language in 1817, it has been the standard used in most of the United States of America, as well as most of Canada. In recent years, however it has been used to teach infants how to speak, and as a tool for nonverbal autistic people to communicate. There are major differences between the ways ASL is used in these situations. Because it is now being used differently, like any language it is evolving to fit the needs and culture of different people groups. Nonverbal people and deaf people experience different challenges in their day to day life they use Sign Language Differently Because most nonverbal people can hear, the function of ASL in their daily life is much different than that of a deaf person. The three most important differences between sign languages in the deaf community and the nonverbal community are the...
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...Children who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HoH) experience unique challenges in public school settings. They often face academic and social obstacles that their normal hearing peers do not encounter. D/HoH adolescents especially tend to have less positive notions about themselves. Often they feel isolation and alienation from peers in inclusive classrooms because of the language barrier. Due to this, social interactions that could foster feelings of belonging and friendship with hearing peers are limited. During adolescent, children tend to shift their allegiance from their family to their peers. Peers provide them with social support and validate their self-worth. The D/HoH student who is unable to establish positive social interactions will most likely have trouble with his or her self-esteem, self-concept, and the ability to self-advocate. Audiologists can provide personal adjustment counseling to their clients who are dealing with the social and psychological adolescent developmental issues such as self-esteem, self-concept, and self-advocacy (Rall & Montoya, n.d.). History of Deaf Education in America The education for Deaf children in America primarily consisted of private tutoring or schooling in Europe in the early eighteenth-century. European schools used the oral method, which made use of speech, lip-reading, and written language to facilitate learning. They also used the manual method that used signs and writing. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet visited the...
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...Amber Kiker Kiker 1 Professor McCarthy English 102 August 12, 2015 Deaf Employment in the Professional Sector Profound hearing loss affects millions of people in the United States today. According to the Gualledette Research Institute there are currently over a million people between the ages of 6 and 65 who are Deaf (Harrington 1). While several state and federally funded programs have been implemented to support early and post-secondary education for the Deaf, evidence points to a significant lack of job placement assistance for Deaf young adults transitioning from college to independent living. Deaf graduates often return home to live with family due to an inability to obtain employment reflective of their academic achievements. Currently in America the most common type of employment held by Deaf individuals is limited primarily to the service and manufacturing industries. The objective of this research is to investigate the professional sector of employment in the United States to uncover the driving mechanisms behind the non-presence of the Deaf Community, specifically those with post-secondary education, and to examine what steps are being taken to resolve this apparent disparity. In the hearing world, graduating from college is the beginning of an exciting chapter of a young adult’s life as it represents the transition from higher education into the world of professional employment. It is the time one gets to put into practice the skills they have...
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... the Torah protected the deaf from being cursed by others, but did not allow them to participate fully in the rituals of the Temple. Special laws concerning marriage and property were established for deaf-mutes, but deaf-mutes were not allowed to be witnesses in the courts. (Camp) During 1500-1620 there were many influences from Italian and Spanish educators for deaf children. Italian physician Girolamo Cardano was the first to challenge the pronouncements of Aristotle. He believed that hearing words was not necessary for the understanding of ideas. He said that deaf people were capable of using their minds, argued for the importance of teaching them, and was one of the first to state that deaf people could learn to read and write without learning how to speak first. Pedro Ponce De Leon taught deaf sons of the Spanish nobility in order that they might inherit property. He used reading and writing, but also taught speech. He apparently traced letters and indicated pronunciation with lip movements to introduce and develop speech among his students. Pablo Bonet taught the sons of Spanish noblemen to read and speak using the one-handed alphabet. He published the first book on deaf education in 1620 in Madrid. The book depicted Bonet's form of a manual alphabet. His intent was to further the oral and manual education of deaf people in Spain. Around 1760, a French priest, Charles Michel De L'Eppe, established the first free public school for the deaf in France. De L'Eppe tried...
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...While watching Through Deaf Eyes, there were a lot of things that I didn’t think about before. For example, when they started talking about how even in deaf schools, African Americans were segregated from the rest of the white people I was a little thrown off by this. When talking about this in history classes, I never thought about segregating people twice?! The deaf community was already misunderstood and had to have their own schools and now the black deaf community had to be pushed out even farther? This concept started a whole new world for me. In my life, I really have never been exposed to sign language before. I think I have only met one real deaf person and he was about three and had a cochlear implant. So, the deaf community has never popped into my mind when it came to things like this. I think that another big part of the movie, for me, was when the students from Gallaudet University protested against their new president because she wasn’t deaf. Again, this is not something that I had never thought about before. It was big when Obama first became president that was a big turning point for America and also very moving. I know it was more important to the African American community because of their history and how crazy that was for them! Now, I know I can’t relate to the deaf community but I do understand that as an all-deaf university there should be an all-deaf staff, including the president. For those students to fight that hard and win just goes to show how dedicated...
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