Douglas Tilden: Portrait of a Deaf Sculptor (review)

Reviews Meadow-Kendall Social-Emotional Assessment Inventory for Deaf Students, Kathryn P. Meadow, Ph.D. (& Colleagues at Kendall School), $11.00 for the Manual and scoring overlays (Manual alone, $3.00; inventories are distributed in packets of 10 for $1.50 per packet), OUTREACH, Pre-College Programs, Box 114, Gallaudet College, Washington, D.C. 20002. Dr. Meadow and her colleagues at the Kendall Demonstration School have made a major contribution to the psychological evaluation of deaf children with the development of this behavioral rating scale. It will be of particular value in programs where there are no psychologists skilled in working with deaf youth. It is usable with hearing-impaired children ages 7-20, and it can be administered and scored by teacher, psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, or other professional. Norms and validation are satisfactory. McCay Vernon, Ph.D. Editor American Annals of the Deaf Western Maryland College Westminster, Md. 21157 Douglas Tilden: Portrait of a Deaf Sculptor, Mildred Albronda, 144 pp., T. J. Publishers, Inc., 817 Silver Spring Avenue, Silver Spring, Md. 20910,1980. Perhaps because his fall from fame and fortune was much more gradual than his rise, Douglas Tilden today is a practically forgotten man. Yet, as Ms. Albronda's biography reveals, Tilden's career and life deserve much broader recognition. Tilden was no solitary genius like a Beethoven or a Goya, but a "genuine" deaf man in the sense that he had attended a school for the deaf and was an activist in the cause of the deaf (and even at one time President of the California Association of the Deaf). Given this background, his achievements are amazing and his career offers food for thought. After achieving recognition in the then art capital of the world, Paris, he returned to San Francisco and was commissioned to commemorate California heroes and history in monumental bronze statuary , of which the most outstanding specimen is the famous Mechanics Monument in San Francisco. He gained national renown and wealth, was feted by the great, had a mansion built to his specifications, and his doings were chronicled in the press. He also was no mean writer; he once won first prize for a story he submitted to The Overland Monthly. Then after 1900 his decline began: Trends in art changed and he refused to go along with revolutionary modern art. His commissions stopped, his wife abandoned him, the public lost interest in him, and this once extremely wealthy artist was reduced to begging for a teaching job and working in a machine shop. As if to compound the irony, Tilden, the man whom the press used to call "the Michelangelo of the West," ended up sculpturing papiermache dinosaurs for Hollywood films. Few men, deaf or not, have experienced such a dizzying ascent to glory and wealth, followed by such a dismaying descent. Ms. Albronda deserves our thanks for resurrecting this remarkable deaf artist in her biography. Bernard Bragg Theatre Arts Department Gallaudet College Washington, D.C. 20002 Hearing Aids: A Daily Check (an audio-visual program ), sound filmstrip $45.00, slide/tape $75.00, Design Media, 327 17th St., Oakland, Calif. 94612, 1980. This sound filmstrip presents a step-by-step procedure for checking hearing aids, trouble shooting, and making minor repairs. The parts of an ear level hearing aid are named and clearly pointed out. Mention is made of the body aid but less attention is given to its use. The daily check procedure is outlined very specifically, including directions such as "switch off and remove the child's aid." Also included are specific sounds (ahh, ooh, eeh, shh, sss) or sentences to be presented in checking the aid. The specificity of this program makes it helpful for parents and beginning speech and hearing or education students. The program covers equipment needed to check a hearing aid, such as a personal ear mold or stethoscope and pipe cleaners and shows how these can be used. Finally, trouble-shooting steps are provided. Common hearing aid problems are presented with steps for dealing with these problems. For example, feedback may be caused by wax buildup , in which case the solution would simply be to clean the ear mold. However, this same problem...