A Deaf Adult Speaks Out

2. What Deafness Means

21What Deafness Means Most people are familiar with the dictionary definition of deafness, which is the absence of hearing. However, this is an oversimplification since the deprivation of one's hearing can vary both in its degree and kind. Let us consider, in theory, a human being in the full possession of health, mind, and faculties with a single exception: the ability to hear. What does this loss of one faculty do to a person who is otherwise perfectly "normal?" Such a question defies a simple answer, for so many factors are involved. Perhaps the first and most important factor that comes to mind is when this loss occurred. There is a big difference between an onset of deafness at birth and at the age of 25. Onset of Deafness The sense of hearing serves as one of our main channels for the input of information. The adult who loses the ability to hear has had the full benefit of that sense during development from untutored infant to adult. This person has grown up learning normal language ability, orap:· skills, and those requisite skills needed for a satisfactory standard of living. But, a child who was born deaf is an entirely different proposition. This child has had a strike called against him/her right ::- Oral-Communication efforts using speech and lipreading. 8 What Deafness Means I9 from birth. A deaf child's sense of hearing can give only imperfect or distorted input of information so the youngster will have to acquire living skills through other channels of communication.t Any competent educator in the field of deafness knows that the difference of a year or two in the age of onset of deafness can make a noticeable difference in a person's development. But, average people who are in full possession of their hearing have no concept at all of the large part that the sense of hearing plays in their own development, nor even in their communication with the outside world. They have taken this sense so much for granted that they have never once thought of how it would be without the ability to hear. This excerpt from In This Sign (1970), Joanne Greenberg's perceptive novel on deafness, may serve to clarify what I am driving at. Mrs. Anglin had two cups and saucers and she picked up the coffeepot with her free hand and began to move forward. Janice had stopped and half-turned and Mrs. Anglin cried, "Watch out-this is still hot!" The movement of Janice's arm did not stop. Mrs. Anglin found herself blocked by the table; she couldn't move back. Janice's arm was still moving around with her turning. "Get back, look out, you'll get burned!" Margaret, coming from the kitchen, heard her mother-in-law cry out and looked up too late to see anything but her expression of irritation giving way to one of fascinated horror. Janice's upper arm was stopped firmly against the hot side of the coffeepot. With a strangle-sound she pulled away violently and cutlery scattered from the plate she was still holding. The reflex movement had turned her around and she was facing Mrs. Anglin with a wounded, vulnerable expression, like a child beaten for no reason. She touched the arm gingerly. The flesh had gone white and then red and even now an angry red blotch was coming out plainly. Mrs. Anglin's voice sounded pettish. She felt guilty and was also perhaps at the end of her patience with the evening. "I told you ... I called out and you-well, you just stood there!" Her face had lost all its softness again. "Why didn't you get out of the way? I told you-" Margaret had come around to Mrs. Anglin's side and was Signing gently to Janice: "She told you to get out of the way, but you didn't hear her." Janice opened a slow, half-frightened smile, and said in her tiny Sign, "I'm sorry-it's not a bad burn. It only startled me.~~ t Communication-A transmitting; a giving, or giving and receiving, of information , signals, or messages by speech, gestures, writing, etc. 10 IA DEAF ADULT SPEAKS OUT Mrs. Anglin looked around in wonder and then her hand came up to her face. "How could I have done that? You told me she was deaf-that both your...