Growing Up Deaf - Update 6

Earlier in my Growing Up Deaf - Update 3 post, I talked about MSSD. I was out at MSSD all day during their academic bowl as I mentioned in the previous post, MSSD's Academic Bowl.

One of the first things I realized from back then while talking with a couple parents is that my signing skills weren't exactly that great. So if I had gone to MSSD:
- I'd be more oral than signing, but I'd still be learning sign.
- would I have fit in regardless of my signing ability?
- would I have a learning experience like I had with being mainstreamed?
- would I have had more of a social life than with the hearing school mainstreaming?
   (Growing Up Deaf - parts 18, 19, 20, 21 - Teasing and Mistreatment and serial label)
- would I have had better friends than with the hearing school mainstreaming?

Even after considering all this, what was the best thing for me to do? Probably mainstreaming was the better choice.

Growing Up Deaf Update 5

Something else came to mind when I was talking with someone about their school years, related to the Growing Up Deaf Part 19 and Part 20 posts. Back when I attended the School From Hell, there were a number of times some kids angrily asked me why I was a year older than them. I told them maybe due to my birthdate being so early in the school year? Maybe something else. Or I just plain said I didn't know.

The truth was that I attended kindergarten not for the normal one year, but two years. Remember I said I lost my hearing around age 5 in Growing Up Deaf Part 5?

Had I told them, who knows what they would have done?

Growing Up Deaf Update 4

Jamie and I were talking about the mumps when she was writing Mumps Can Lead to Deafness. I mention in Growing Up Deaf Part 1 and Part 5 about the diagnosis and how I lost my hearing. But she gave me a historical aspect that I had to check.

I have a paper from my doctor back then that my dad was "trying to locate record of MMR." I don't think it was ever found.

According to the Measles Vaccine Questions and Answers page, the mumps vaccine wasn't available til 1967. Neither was the MMR vaccine til 1971.

Seems I wasn't vaccinated in time. I'll find out the story sometime, somehow.

"Growing Up Deaf" Update 3

Sherlock Steve's blog post against the deafness.about.com post! reminded me of a few things.

But first, in my Growing up Deaf - Part 11 post, I mentioned that I had printed information on MSSD, but never went. I talked with mom about this when I went home to join my family for a wedding. She said she and dad wanted me to stay home and learn more. I'll talk more with her when I head back sometime.

As mentioned before, I didn't quite get full immersion into deaf culture til college, with some immersion here and there in middle and high schools, deaf church ministries, and the deaf camp in Louisiana. My dad got upset a lot of the time when I had my hearing aids off, even when I was lipreading him. Did that make him an audist? I don't think so. They never forced hearing aids onto me, just encouraged me to wear them.

As for that four year old kid, the decision to wear his implant is up to him. It was a major mistake for the doctor to tell his mother to hold him down. I'm surprised someone didn't call Child Protective Services on the guy. Right now is the time for worried mom to work on communications, both sign and reading/writing. Nothing's worse than a deaf kid with no language. What a waste of a good mind.

When is Audism Not Audism? - Part 4

So I ask once more, when is audism not audism?

Returning to the definition of audism, it is the belief that hearing and speaking are better than sign language. It is the notion that one is superior based on one’s ability to hear or behave in the manner of one who hears. It is all in the attitude. Hearing people who refuse to do anything other than speak to the deaf person, thinking they'll be understood, may be committing audism or may simply be unfamiliar with how to communicate. Adding to the term confuses and obfuscates the issue even more. Elimination of audism begins with education. Sometimes all it takes is the deaf person doing something with the audist that can change the attitude of the audist.

Bullying, social rejection, and cliques are not audism. They are issues of sociality that are faced by all members of society, no matter what the disability. There is still freedom of speech, but there are rules that must be followed here and there. This is not audism, but rule enforcement. However, Arthur Nonymous in a final comment in Part 2 had a good point.

Being offered tools for hearing better is not audism. It is a choice, to accept or refuse. The underlying hearing loss is still there. Education of the parents and user about the hearing tools is not audism, but informing them of the choices.

Deaf people will still be around, even with hearing assistance devices. Being militant will only make things worse and may cause other hearing people to commit even worse acts of discrimination and/or audism or simply refuse to deal with any deaf person, thus fueling the audism fire.

When is Audism Not Audism? - Part 3

Here's another of Jamie Berke's articles on Deaf Culture - Audism. It's got a lot of good points here including a couple of good links, especially the two resources near the end.

Please do not say that I don't understand. I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt, felt the emotional impact, and then some. I have even talked about my own experiences in my Growing Up Deaf posts (parts 8, 9, and 10) in going to school, having experienced the Oralist vs Manualist fight. I posted Affected Emotionally by the AG Bell Protests? when a recent protest at AGBell in DC brought all the emotions back to the surface. My final post on the Growing Up Deaf serial sums things up.

Just because there is a bill out there for children for hearing aids and CIs doesn't mean it's an audist bill. The person sponsoring it may have the wrong ideas, but it is making more available of these tools to help, whether used or not. It simply means that you're giving the child a chance to hear with a hearing aid or a CI. If they don't help the child, not a problem. They are tools. The child can decide later on if they want to use hearing aids or CIs.

Completely separating ourselves from the hearing world would be a mistake. One would need to deal with the hearing people at some time or another. This is not a time for us to be divided based on the this word's meaning. What unites us is a common theme, our hearing loss. Don't let this become the equivalent of the Civil War, one that nearly destroyed our country.

Next: Part 4

When is Audism Not Audism? - Part 2

Let's move back in time when the Oralism vs Manualism debate was hotter, and the child was mainstreamed or in a deaf school. For the child who was mainstreamed, there were often issues such as being able to follow along with the lesson and classroom discussion including socialization with peers and classmates. In some schools, especially middle, there is a lot of peer pressure, wanting to fit in, and acceptance/rejection. The kids with disabilities could be instantly rejected the day they joined that school and/or bullied to an extent. With deaf kids who had this issue, this was not audism at all. It was plain ignorance and immaturity on the part of the non-disabled kids and in some cases, adults. Bullying can happen anywhere, regardless of disability.

Refer back to my Growing Up Deaf posts parts 18, 19, 20, and 21 on Teasing and Mistreatment. Again, as I said in the previous paragraph, it was not audism.

In Jamie Berke's article, Worse Than Last...Not at All. - A Growing Up Deaf Memory, she talks of being picked last. I had this exact same thing happen to me, not occasionally, but all the time. That is not audism, but a form of social rejection. You could SEE it in their eyes when I was last to be picked, an "oh crap, we got him" look. There was also another HEARING boy who had this same issue, and team captains often debated who to pick! Yet, the gym teacher did nothing, even though they knew about my deafness! I actually had ONE gym teacher stand up to someone who was really giving me trouble! There was another disabled girl who was in the same middle school as I, who was also rejected. So again, it was not audism, but social rejection. Mix that with immaturity and ignorance...

Remember this relay log in An Example of What Deaf Jobseekers Face? That was not audism. It was a recruiter who wasn't familiar with the relay and got intimidated and nervous by the process.

Next: Part 3

When is Audism Not Audism? - Part 1

I'm seeing many other deaf call any kind of mistreatment of them audism. It's become too much of a blanket term. But first, before I start, the definition of audism as coined by Tom Humphries in his unpublished 1975 work "The Making of a Word;"

"Audism- (o diz m) n. the notion that one is superior based on one’s ability to hear or behave in the manner of one who hears."

In short, it's the application of hearing ability onto someone who has a hearing loss and may or may not use a hearing assistance device, and expect them to be able to hear well. I have often said that with many deaf, hearing and understanding can easily be two different things. Just because something is heard, if at all, does not mean it will be understood. It stereotypes those with hearing losses. Before I continue;

Audism by Susan F. Crist

She's right about how we've expanded the term. Thus, this is why others have said while others think it's audism, most likely it may not. Wikipedia's definition of audism seems to have a somewhat slanted view.

Think about how blind people feel when a lot of the world is highly visual in this article, Being blind, 'you have to be adventurous'. What would they call it? Visualism? It's quite true our world is highly sensual. This reminds me of a short story by HG Wells, The Country of the Blind where every citizen is blind, and there is no such thing as sight. Now apply this to a country of the deaf, where every citizen is deaf, and there is no such thing as hearing.

There's an interesting parallel to this short story and the hearing/deaf world. Near the end of the story, the blind doctors want to remove his eyes to "cure him."

Next: Part 2

"Growing Up Deaf" Post Update 2 - Part 2

After doing some more research on this Utley book, Google had a page that contained a passage that says exactly how it is with those who were in oral schools and were forbidden to even learn or use sign, and then learned sign later;

Effective education for learners with exceptionalities By Festus E. Obiakor, Cheryl Anita Rose Utley, and Anthony F. Rotatori. ISBN 076230975X, 9780762309757.

This will put you on page 240. Read the last paragraph up to where it mentions cued speech.

At least some of those who read that will see themselves in it. Powerful stuff right there!

This doesn't mean the oralists were completely wrong in their methods. It means that total communications, meaning speech/lipreading AND signing, should have been included and used.

"Growing Up Deaf" Post Update 2 - Part 1

Update from Growing Up Deaf - Part 10.

I managed to find a classmate from third grade on a social networking site and she remembered me. Then I broke out the report cards and checked some notations made way long ago. One thing that I missed all these years was something written in my first grade report card.

"REGULAR grade 2. No need for special class. Definitely *no* 'deaf' class."

Perhaps something more surprising was buried in one of the grading categories, under Music, was "Auditory Training." Also listed in there was "Utley book." Has anyone had experience with this? Google gives me mention of auditory/visual speech recognition. Then under "Speech and Phonics" is "Child shows desire to communicate orally." These were "primary deaf-oral classes" according to the supplement stapled to the report card.

Interesting what one finds when one breaks out the old report cards and looks through them.

Next - Part 2

Growing up Deaf - Final

Looking to the future

Post-college, there are times that it seems that old friends have disconnected. Those who mistreated you have apologized or don't seem to care. While you tend to keep in touch with those you met back in college over time, it's too easy to lose contact with those you grew up with. I was never able to keep in contact with the other old friends from before high school due to all the moving we did. I've found some from high school and before via Internet searches. I would like to hear from my previous teachers if I can find them again.

After high school, I started finding out about the social stuff that I had missed. After college, I found I had missed much more. Almost no one invited me over for birthday parties, dinners, overnights, the usual things of growing up. That included missing the prom and finding out what it was all about.

Here's a message I posted to an email list in response to a low-vision friend who has a guide dog when she was complaining about some things related to the church she was attending;


> I'd bail. Start looking for some place that's closer and easier to get
> to. Two hours away, two hours back -- that's four hours a night just to
> be rejected. And that far away, there's little or no chance of
> outside-of-Tues-night contact if you do connect with anyone.

Yep... Kinda the story of our lives. If you're the only one at the church with a vision problem, and people aren't talking or interacting with you, then you know something's wrong.

How many times have I heard the stories of deaf kids and others who have never been invited to a sleepover, never been invited to a birthday party, never been called by their friends, never been visited by them, none of them ever gone out of their way to be on the kid's side after they're going through teasing, always being picked last, always eating alone at lunch, no one talking with you at lunch...

That flippin' *HURTS!* It gets worse when adults are doing it and they start creating cliques or reject you due to your disability. Even worse when they ignore you or refuse to interact with you...


We can't always dwell on the past. Neither can we change it. The future can have better things in store for us. If we move on with our lives, then we have become better for it.

Thanks for reading the serial.

Growing up Deaf - Part 24

Attending Summer camps

I had my share of summer camps including the day camps. One was a church thing that went for a few weeks. I had one counselor who kept accusing me of being able to hear. I don't remember what someone told him that made him quit saying that.

Another one was in Illinois with my church group and I was the only deaf person there. I did sign a song at one point. They allowed only clean graffiti in the cabins. The high point of my time there was this mudfight. It was rather fun being the last to leave and a mud man on the way to the showers.

One was a deaf church camp in Louisiana. It was the first time I was around this many other deaf, and my signing skills weren't that great. I had some people be my voice interpreter in a class or elsewhere as needed. Interestingly enough, one of the former counselors lives near me today. The pastor mentioned previously in Part 7 was Clifford Bruffey. He will be missed. He passed away in 2001, I believe.

Next - Final Growing Up Deaf post - Looking to the Future

Growing up Deaf - Part 23

Intro to captioning in theatres

When I lived in Illinois, sometimes I watched movies at the theatre, reading the book first. With "Back To The Future" and some other movies, I didn't need to read the book.

In 1996, I was in Michigan with someone and watched Schindler's List. Later on, I watched Titanic in Cincinnati, Ohio. Fortunately, captioned movies became more common, meaning I didn't have to travel so far to see one.

It wasn't often that I would go out to see a movie with friends since I'd usually be seeing them alone. Much of the time, I'd see a movie at their home. My family sometimes rented videos, and sometimes we'd all watch. Not all VHS, Beta, and laserdisc movies had captions. Now, with the new DVD releases, they're either captioned, subtitled, both, or in some cases, none at all.

Next - Summer camps

Growing up Deaf - Part 22

Intro to captioning at home

It wasn't til about 1977 or '78 when I lived in Louisiana when I was given a Sears Telecaptioner as a birthday gift. It was hard if not impossible to understand a lot of the dialogue, but the action wasn't a problem. Many a game show were easy to follow like the The Price Is Right and the $64,000 Pyramid, despite the dialogue.

Sesame Street and Electric Company were fun to watch, though not captioned til maybe 10 years later. I enjoyed Zoom as well as the Mickey Mouse Club and watched Batman with my brother. It was probably every boy's fantasy to meet Julie Newmar's Catwoman character. What a catsuit!

Little House on the Prairie was one of the better shows back then. Nothing is like it today.

I ordered the Telecaption 4000 in 1990 to replace the old captioner. I still have both today. In 1992, the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act mandated TVs larger than a certain size to have the caption circuit built in.

Seems the more modern shows put more emphasis on dialogue than action with some exceptions. Mom would sometimes go out to a movie and tell me if I could understand it or not.

Next - Intro to Captioning in Theatres

Growing up Deaf - Part 21

Teasing and Mistreatment - Part 4 of 4

It's been around the last 10 years that we're seeing the effects of bullying and mistreatment. The spate of school violence has proved what the kids have been telling the adults all these years. It causes a lot of emotional and physical harm. I was probably fortunate it didn't get to the point where I was sent to a doctor and/or hospital. Even then, a few adults listened to us and just about took on the bullies/tormentors to the point of going one on one with them to show them that their actions weren't tolerated. The parents of these bullies/tormentors can have just as much fault. In some of the cases I've heard about, it's taken hidden video and court.

http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/la/551
http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/la/215/improve
http://www.bullypolice.org/

In the second greatschools URL, there's the Four Myths of Bullying. The third and the fourth I heard constantly. Ignoring them didn't do a thing. Going elsewhere or ignoring would cause them to step up attacks. Stand up for ourselves? Fight back? Damned if I did, damned if I didn't.

Jamie Berke, Deafness guide at About, had a response to her from someone related to this about her own experiences. They said that when people were uncomfortable around those they see as different, they didn't know what to do and may treat them in a mean way. Meaning that today, what we thought of as teasing and mistreatment, could easily have been bullying.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3934/is_200002/ai_n8895278

There's some good videos on YouTube and many other places with a bit of looking.

Next - Intro to Captioning at Home

Growing up Deaf - Part 20

Teasing and Mistreatment - Part 3 of 4

With late high school, it got less. Some hurled pennies at me. They're pretty much lucky that they didn't nail my eyes in the wrong way. Remember my electronics class? Charged capacitors can be electrifying. However revenge-bent the mindset some of these kids were, I'd most likely be beaten up or something. I should have just told the coach or teacher what was going on and then gone on to the library, regardless of the consequences.

During art class in the School from Hell, I did manage to do something. This class had three groups of long tables put together. I sneaked under the table with a long piece of roping to attach to a chair leg at another table. I pulled when someone sat down. The entire class died including the teacher. Then I sneaked back to get the rope and back to my seat.

The rope and I were right within view of around 4 or 5 people including the teacher, and all they had to do was look down. *ONE* person saw me, and he never told anyone. The kid that hit the floor was one of my tormentors.

In college, there were always the dorm pranks, which most of us knew enough to never be destructive. I heard about a residence advisor who had a large water-filled trashcan tilted against their door. Some things under the beds were destroyed, they had to deal with the mildew. A similar thing happened to an RA across the hall from me.

Next - Final Part of Teasing and Mistreatment

Growing up Deaf - Part 19

Teasing and Mistreatment - Part 2 of 4

At the end of eighth or ninth grade, someone broke into my locker and took everything. I had a few things at home, but the major stuff I needed for studies were gone. That meant I couldn't study for my finals or get homework done after the theft. I told my teachers and they said that what my grade average was before the finals, that would be my final exam grade. When classmates heard this conversation, some were pretty upset. However, those responsible didn't even try to return my stuff. Did they destroy it, toss it in remote trashcans, what?

A couple things stand out in mind. I don't remember if the combination locks were school-provided or they were my own. They used top and a bottom lockers with mine being the top. At one point, I found my lock upside down facing the locker rather than the other way. It wasn't til shortly afterwards one girl admitted to doing that while watching over my shoulder. She and a couple other girls were known to give me trouble at times. If she did the locker theft, she put up quite an act when I talked with the teachers.

Why didn't they bother with my hearing aids, lock me into a locker or locked area in the locker room, duct tape me up, that kind of thing? I tended to gravitate towards the adults at times.

I don't think I had much of a chance to make friends at the School From Hell. The mistreatment started not long after I arrived; just about blowing any chance I had with making friends. Whatever label they stuck on me, most likely stuck til I left. There was this counselor who actually compared me to a deaf girl who they claimed to be popular there or somewhere else. I don't think anyone really understood my hearing loss back then, much less tried. I heard from a former classmate that like her, we weren't quite accepted there.

Next - Part 3 of Teasing and Mistreatment

Growing up Deaf - Part 18

Teasing and Mistreatment - Part 1 of 4

We've known that younger kids with some sort of disability go through this type of thing to a degree in grade school. Some will experience virtually none, while others will just plain be rejected outright and worse. Sometimes it's moving to a new school that can help or make it much worse.

Those who didn't quite understand those who were different mistreated them in some way. There always were some who did and some who didn't care what your disability was. Sometimes it seemed they weren't around when you needed them most, or in some cases, didn't stick up for you. In other cases, they acted as if they were your friend when they were just putting on a front or an act.

In elementary, they didn't mistreat me at all, or so it seemed.

However, come the sixth through ninth grades, those were the worst years. I was always last to be picked for anything, no matter what. One kid was hurling stuff at my back. I came rather close to hurling my desk at him. I lived near several students from the same school. Some others knew where I lived and my phone number, so why didn't they bother me there?

If I tried to tell a teacher about what was going on, they'd attack me even more. What else was I to do? Should I have brought along something to defend myself? Should I fight? Damned if I did, damned if I didn't. I had enough of it with my own brother.

Next - Part 2 of Teasing and Mistreatment

Growing up Deaf - Part 17

Extracurricular Activities/outside of school

I was usually doing some sort of activity over time with someone if not by myself. I spent time reading books. It wasn't unusual for me to zip through a The Hardy Boys book in less than two hours in one sitting. I went through the classics, fiction, and mystery. Alfred Hitchcock, Isaac Asimov, Stephen King, and many more authors' books I read, much of the time just once. It wasn't unusual for me to read the book and then watch the movie, as it would make the movie more understandable despite the differences with the movie and book.

I searched for all ten books in Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth series and finished reading through them in two months after taking time off work due to a knee arthroscopy. Stephen King's IT took a bit of time to read due to all the flashbacks and sudden returns to the present, which sometimes had me go back a chapter or a few pages. I've also got just about all of Zane Grey's books, but haven't quite been able to read them all. I've also read the first four Harry Potter books, and have noticed that Rowling wrote it in such a way, that even the late elementary school readers would understand it. But of course, since they kept getting longer and longer, it was getting a little harder to remember little details here and there at times. Not only that, but hard to put down once the real action started!

Now and then mom would say "...that book can't be *THAT* interesting!" when I didn't put it down to do something she wanted me to do. My brother would sometimes put his hands out like he'd be reading a book and put it close to his face and give it the 'up and down' reading look. I think I can make him do that again sometime...

All this reading is pretty much the reason why my English skills have been good. All through school through twelfth grade, I had English classes, never skipping a year. After school, I was home a lot since I was almost never invited places by kids in my classes, not even parties or anything like that. If I wasn't doing homework, I could be out playing some when I was younger, reading, watching TV, watching a movie, or some other thing.

Out at GMU, I took my hopefully-final English course, which was online. One assignment used a team of five people writing up something and then submit it to the leader to put together in the final report. I was the team leader. We did well, getting an A in our report.

A couple booksellers in Illinois and a librarian in Kentucky knew me well. Now to see if I can do it with one around the DC area.

Next - Teasing and Mistreatment

Growing up Deaf - Part 16

Attending College - Part 3

I was most likely one of the few deaf people at NTID who didn't have a TTY. My family didn't need it, as I could use voice on the phone and I had hearing aids on. I was able to keep using voice on the phone for a little time til shortly after graduation, then gave up trying as amplified phones were too expensive. I tried a couple things from Radio Shack, but they didn't always help. Speakerphones did nicely for me. Later, I quit trying to use the phone and had a hearing person help out til the relay came along. That meant dialing an 800 number. Cheers of joy were most likely heard when we could use the relay via instant messaging and the web.

Paintball was introduced to me, and I found it to be a rather fun game to play on some weekends. Sure, I had my share of hitting the other team, including being shot in a few spectacular or interesting ways. Another friend was on the other team, and I somehow came across him maybe 100 feet away in the thin trees and despite all our shooting at each other, we never hit each other though his ball bounced off me. My gun jammed halfway through our shooting match when a paintball broke inside. I ran down the hill to a path and I came across the judge who told me that it was the end of the game. Another game I hid behind a dirt 'wall' and kept shooting at this other person, but he managed to nail me first with the paintball bruising the side of my neck before breaking on my arm.

One particular game had us get close up to each other and I was on my stomach on the ground shooting the other team. I was hit, but even after putting my head down quickly after taking a second shot, they were still shooting at me and it took a judge to get them to stop.

Years later, I attended a community college in northern VA, going into their network security program. I was required to take an elective in english or theatre. You can guess what I chose. The class had 3-4 other course sections within, all of whom were studying various aspects of stage. We decided to do Macbeth. Another person and I did some of the lighting and other stage setups. We captioned two of the performances, something the instructor wanted to do. This will be the subject of another blog post, an update of my Poor Man's Captioning (or Subtitling) Device located on About.com.

I graduated in 2005 with honors. The ceremony was at George Mason University. Halfway through the ceremony, the noise started drowning out the master of ceremonies.

Next - Extracurricular/outside of school.