A Silent World
By Jarod Miller
Imagine being completely out of your element, facing a barrier in communication that is completely unavoidable. Now imagine trying to convey a thought, something that is important to you, and no one is able to understand or help you.
For millions of Americans this is everyday life.
People in the deaf community, who are either born with hearing impairment or who have become deaf later in life, face constant challenges in a hearing society. Challenges like isolation, discrimination and a lack of trust in hearing people brought on by incidents of teasing and being taken advantage of.
Isolation is one of the biggest challenges deaf people face.
Besides, many deaf students tend to think they are stupid because they can't do what other kids do, according to professor Fran Decapite of the Speech and Hearing Department at Cleveland state.
The deaf are also teased by hearing students and even adults because of their speaking capability, and deaf people's signs are mimicked.
"I also saw the isolation between the deaf and hearing," Decapite said. "In the high school, at the beginning of the year, often hearing students would come up to talk to the deaf students, but all the communication was through me. More often than not, when there wasn't easy communication, the students stopped coming up."
The inability to communicate with someone of their own age in the high school setting really created isolation elsewhere.
"At lunch and other times, the deaf students sat and talked only with the other deaf students," said Decapite.
Another element of the isolation is due to the inability to learn incidentally. Normally, speaking people over hear when someone tells something to another, and learn from it.
This lack of learning can also affect reading comprehension.
Without incidental learning and knowledge of certain background of the English language, deaf people often top out at a fourth grade reading level, according to Decapite.
Deaf people also face discrimination, and in many cases in the work place.
In most cases, many deaf are either underemployed or unemployed. The term "audism" was created by Tom Humphries, author of many American Sign Language teaching texts, describing an attitude by dear or hearing people think that those who can hear or have good speech and English skills are superior.
To overcome the difficulties, deaf people turn to the support of the deaf communities. They have come together to protest for their rights.
In Cleveland, the Deaf, Blind Coalition wrote letters to over 100 doctors asking that there be interpreters available at their offices. When one doctor did not respond, they organized a sit-in at the clinic to call attention to their issue.
Often there are misconceptions about the deaf community. A common misunderstanding is that all deaf people can lip read and therefore hearing people don't need to explain in sign language, according to Decapite.
Another wrong notion is that it's a hearing world and that the sole responsibility of communication falls on the deaf person to learn the spoken language.
There are many things hearing people can do to make things improve.
For starters, they can learn some basic sign languages. It's also easy for a hearing person to help by just using natural gestures and speaking clearly, not loudly as is the tendency for hearing people to do.
Above all, it is necessary to be patient and not force any unwanted help. "Deaf people are only asking to be treated with respect," Decapite said.
If that's hard for anyone to realize then try to imagine yourself in a deaf individual's shoes, trapped, so to speak, in a silent world.