Oy, Deaf Drama...
If you like watching TV on a regular basis and have been following this season of Amazing Race, you'll have noticed that one of the contestants, Luke Adams is Deaf. Not deaf, oral deaf, hard-of-hearing, but Deaf. He identifies himself as culturally deaf. Luke Adams is also an alumni from my school, so I've been hearing lots of buzz about this season though I have yet to watch a single episode.
On the first episode, Luke Adams said something inflammatory to the community of deaf people who are, for the most part, independent and living in the mainstream.
Text below is the transcription:
RIT alumnus Luke Adams '08 and his mother, Margie, win the opening leg of The Amazing Race.
[music]
Victor: The last bus stop is here.
Tammy: Okay.
Luke: Can you hear them?
Margie: I can hear them, but it's an echo.
Tammy: I hear them over there.
Margie: I think we have to go over the bridge.
[music]
Host: Margie and Luke, [signing] you are team #1.
Tammy and Victor, come in here.
Now I have some good news for you. As the winners of this leg of the race, you have won a trip for two from Travelocity to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. You'll send seven nights in an ocean front room in the Western Resort and Spa where you will take a sunset sail, swim with dolphins and zipline through the jungles of the Sierra Madres. Congratulations!
Margie: Thank you, Phil!
Host: Tammy and Victor, you are team #2. Congratulations.
Come on in here. Mark and Michael, you are team #3. Congratulations.
Luke, why was it so important to be on the Race.
Luke [through Margie translating]: A lot of people think deaf people can't do things, but the deaf can do it. They can do exactly what hearing people can do but not talk. I just wanted to show people that deaf people can do it.
I'm also including an article written for NTID news: http://www.ntid.rit.edu/media/full_text.php?article_id=861
Today I received an e-mail from the listserv I lurk on. Here members of the community I identify most with post articles, questions, and basically discuss whatever issues they have with deafness. A woman wrote an article included in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09073/955418-109.stm
Quite honestly, I think both persons said inflammatory things, but they do represent two extreme ends of the issue. The "big-D Deaf" platform and the straight-up oral deaf platform. While I am naturally biased due to my own experiences and successes in the mainstream using cochlear implants and spoken language, I also realize that it's not the only way to truly "succeed" in the real world. However, Adams makes a gross misstatement in saying that the only thing that deaf people can't do is talk. This is, as Goldstein notes in her article, an insult to many of us who have put in countless years of practice in order to develop clear, understandable speech and to interact successfully with our hearing peers in the mainstream. Also noted by Goldstein, Adams attended a school where a large, diverse deaf community exists. I myself have met many deaf people that use various different ways of communicating. Some are straight ASL, others use a mixture of sign and voice, and others don't know a single sign and communicate using spoken English. I, myself, use sign and speech when talking to deaf people, and communicate just using spoken English with my hearing peers and classmates. It stands to reason that in this environment, Adams would have certainly met oral-deaf people, but whether or not he actually interacted with them remains to see. Nonetheless, by saying that the only thing deaf people can't do is "talk," he is denying the existence of an entire sub-group of deaf people. Goldstein's article echoes many of my personal opinions and beliefs, and is undoubtedly biased. Goldstein makes a statement that bothers me:
"Mr. Adams' abandonment of his implant is unusual. Only 7 percent of students with implants elect not to use theirs. Maybe he has a good reason for not taking advantage of a device that could help him win a race and $1 million, but he has a different mindset than I do."
First off, we don't necessarily know how much he actually gets out of wearing the device. I have no idea if he gets as much information from his device as I do. I can understand spoken speech to the point where I function as hard-of-hearing, and occasionally fool people into thinking I am hearing, if I first introduce myself to them and my processors are covered by hair or a hat. However, I have several friends that only get the benefit of being able to hear environmental noises with their implants, such as a car approaching them from behind or someone shouting at them. They'll hear sound when people talk, but they won't be able to decipher it into something they can understand. The cochlear implant is not the perfect "cure-all" for everyone. There are numerous factors affecting how well your brain'll interpret the information it receives. Those include but are not limited to age implanted, follow-up support and listening therapy, duration of hearing loss, and family involvement.
Second off, having a different mindset is not necessarily a bad thing, just different. If everyone took the same approach to overcoming challenges, the world would be a very one-note, one-dimensional place in terms of intelligence. Things were brought about or discovered because of the different ways people saw and thought about the world.
Personally, this whole issue bothers me because the media portray extremes of the spectrum. I know I am definitely closer to the oral-deaf end of the spectrum, but I feel for the need for an unbiased source of information to be available out there. All parents of deaf children should be aware of all of the methodology and technology available to help deaf children became independent, well-learned members of society.
On the first episode, Luke Adams said something inflammatory to the community of deaf people who are, for the most part, independent and living in the mainstream.
Click to viewText below is the transcription:
RIT alumnus Luke Adams '08 and his mother, Margie, win the opening leg of The Amazing Race.
[music]
Victor: The last bus stop is here.
Tammy: Okay.
Luke: Can you hear them?
Margie: I can hear them, but it's an echo.
Tammy: I hear them over there.
Margie: I think we have to go over the bridge.
[music]
Host: Margie and Luke, [signing] you are team #1.
Tammy and Victor, come in here.
Now I have some good news for you. As the winners of this leg of the race, you have won a trip for two from Travelocity to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. You'll send seven nights in an ocean front room in the Western Resort and Spa where you will take a sunset sail, swim with dolphins and zipline through the jungles of the Sierra Madres. Congratulations!
Margie: Thank you, Phil!
Host: Tammy and Victor, you are team #2. Congratulations.
Come on in here. Mark and Michael, you are team #3. Congratulations.
Luke, why was it so important to be on the Race.
Luke [through Margie translating]: A lot of people think deaf people can't do things, but the deaf can do it. They can do exactly what hearing people can do but not talk. I just wanted to show people that deaf people can do it.
I'm also including an article written for NTID news: http://www.ntid.rit.edu/media/full_text.php?article_id=861
Today I received an e-mail from the listserv I lurk on. Here members of the community I identify most with post articles, questions, and basically discuss whatever issues they have with deafness. A woman wrote an article included in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09073/955418-109.stm
Quite honestly, I think both persons said inflammatory things, but they do represent two extreme ends of the issue. The "big-D Deaf" platform and the straight-up oral deaf platform. While I am naturally biased due to my own experiences and successes in the mainstream using cochlear implants and spoken language, I also realize that it's not the only way to truly "succeed" in the real world. However, Adams makes a gross misstatement in saying that the only thing that deaf people can't do is talk. This is, as Goldstein notes in her article, an insult to many of us who have put in countless years of practice in order to develop clear, understandable speech and to interact successfully with our hearing peers in the mainstream. Also noted by Goldstein, Adams attended a school where a large, diverse deaf community exists. I myself have met many deaf people that use various different ways of communicating. Some are straight ASL, others use a mixture of sign and voice, and others don't know a single sign and communicate using spoken English. I, myself, use sign and speech when talking to deaf people, and communicate just using spoken English with my hearing peers and classmates. It stands to reason that in this environment, Adams would have certainly met oral-deaf people, but whether or not he actually interacted with them remains to see. Nonetheless, by saying that the only thing deaf people can't do is "talk," he is denying the existence of an entire sub-group of deaf people. Goldstein's article echoes many of my personal opinions and beliefs, and is undoubtedly biased. Goldstein makes a statement that bothers me:
"Mr. Adams' abandonment of his implant is unusual. Only 7 percent of students with implants elect not to use theirs. Maybe he has a good reason for not taking advantage of a device that could help him win a race and $1 million, but he has a different mindset than I do."
First off, we don't necessarily know how much he actually gets out of wearing the device. I have no idea if he gets as much information from his device as I do. I can understand spoken speech to the point where I function as hard-of-hearing, and occasionally fool people into thinking I am hearing, if I first introduce myself to them and my processors are covered by hair or a hat. However, I have several friends that only get the benefit of being able to hear environmental noises with their implants, such as a car approaching them from behind or someone shouting at them. They'll hear sound when people talk, but they won't be able to decipher it into something they can understand. The cochlear implant is not the perfect "cure-all" for everyone. There are numerous factors affecting how well your brain'll interpret the information it receives. Those include but are not limited to age implanted, follow-up support and listening therapy, duration of hearing loss, and family involvement.
Second off, having a different mindset is not necessarily a bad thing, just different. If everyone took the same approach to overcoming challenges, the world would be a very one-note, one-dimensional place in terms of intelligence. Things were brought about or discovered because of the different ways people saw and thought about the world.
Personally, this whole issue bothers me because the media portray extremes of the spectrum. I know I am definitely closer to the oral-deaf end of the spectrum, but I feel for the need for an unbiased source of information to be available out there. All parents of deaf children should be aware of all of the methodology and technology available to help deaf children became independent, well-learned members of society.