How Would Kleinman's Eight Questions Be Applied To Deaf Culture?

The United States traditional majority consists of white, middle class individuals who speak English. We chose to focus on the United States in general because deafness is not associated with one state alone, but all over the world. Based on a survey taken between 1988 and 1994, 14.9% of children age six through nineteen experienced hearing loss (Hearing Loss in Children, 2015). Compared with the traditional majority, the children affected

In the journal Science, Technology, & Human Values, Laura Mauldin (2014) , a sociologist at the University of Connecticut, writes about how deafness is much more easily treatable and therefore attitudes around being deaf are changing. She talks about how parents parent deaf children differently, and how now there is a much more modern attitude towards deafness. She also touches on how criticism of the deaf community has arisen due to their

When two hearing people come together to conceive a child, their natural assumption is the child will also be a hearing person. However, that is not always the case. Over 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents. The initial discovery of a deaf child causes stress within the family, because they are ignorant of Deaf culture within the US and also the abilities of deaf people. Nevertheless, despite the initial shock of the child’s inability to hear they are still able to bond together as a family and maintain a healthy family unit.

One of the hottest debates between Deaf and Hearing culture lies in the question, “Should I give my deaf child a cochlear implant?” The Deaf people fear that use of cochlear implants will eliminate their culture. A hearing person may believe it will aid their child to learn in mainstream schooling, or they may not want to learn sign language to communicate with their child. As about 90% of hearing parents cannot effectively communicate with their deaf children (Holcomb, n.d., para. 2), the latter is evident. Placed in this situation, I would implant my infant child with a cochlear implant and teach them sign language so they will have the opportunity to have the best of both worlds.

My feeling was a bit surprised and complicated when I first hear that deaf parents want to conceive a deaf baby. Because if I have not taken any classes about deaf culture or prior to reading Candy and Sharon’s story, I would normally think it is unfair to the children to be born with disabilities, especially when the parents are already deaf who sure know the difficulties and obstacles that a deaf child will have to experience in the future. What if the child grew up and blamed the parents to make the decision for him depended on personal preferences and inflicting hardship on him? Because even though the deaf community exists, the majority of the population is living in the hearing world. There is still some inconvenience for the deaf people today. However, after I took CSD courses and read the article, I have changed my viewpoint about deafness. Now I start to understand more

Although deafness (the genetic disability) cannot be learned, deaf the culture can. The Deaf learn and in return teach that deafness is not a disability or a condition that can be fixed by man; rather, it is a blessing for the gods; in fact, the Deaf are taught that words such as impaired or disability do not even apply to them. Moreover, Deaf people share sign language to their families and friends in order from them to communicate. In actuality, sign language is by far the most important aspect of deaf

Cultural stereotypes used to consider deafness to be a great misfortune, but being deaf does not limit the abilities of a person. Members of the Deaf community consider deafness to be normal rather than a disability. A deaf people can do anything a hearing person can do, such as, drive, participate in group activities, communicate, and have normal lives. Deaf In the film “Through Deaf Eyes”, an HDTV documentary including interviews, personal stories, and historic accounts, the prejudice and affirmation of Deaf culture is revealed to show hearing people the reality of deaf life. Through this film, I have learned about education for deaf people, the Deaf President Now Movement, and about cochlear implants.

However, from the Deaf community’s point of view, deaf children are the future of their culture and not teaching the next generation of signers is “genocide” of their culture (Lane & Byhan). Some children who are proficient in both spoken and signed language may choose later in life to live as if they were deaf, a choice they are largely unable to make if they are not introduced to a signed language early in life. (Dillier & Spillmann, 1997). One study showed that deaf individuals who are not introduced to a signed language as children never become fully proficient; even those who began learning as early as age 5 are significantly less proficient than those who were taught from birth (Newport, 1990). Children who are introduced to both a spoken and signed language from birth are introduced to both cultures, and hopefully excluded from neither. If deaf children are only taught a spoken language, the risk of being isolated from both cultures arises – if they are unable to communicate fully with the spoken world, and have no knowledge of a signed language, they may feel alienated and experience less-than-satisfactory social and physiological growth. (Krammer, p. 346). Although some Deaf community advocates argue that cochlear implants are “unethical” because they disconnect potential Deaf community members from

When it comes to the medical and cultural views of deafness, it seems to be a house divided with how the doctors are quick to show parents handouts regarding how to make the person "normal," perhaps with a cochlear implant versus letting them embrace the Deaf culture. It's all about money with the medical view of deafness. Then, there is the Deaf view of deafness—they believe that they are a linguistic minority. The medical field thinks the Deaf can be fixed, but the deaf see nothing wrong with themselves.

The present study will have 100 teachers within the state of New Jersey participating. Approximately 50 of the teachers will be general, public school teachers. The other 50 will be a combined mixture of teachers highly qualified to teach those who are D/deaf and hard of hearing. Any child who qualifies via audiogram as having a hearing loss would be eligible to participate. The study aims to have 50 D/deaf or hard of hearing students who have attended a New Jersey public school for more than one year and 50 D/deaf or hard of hearing students who have attended a residential school for the Deaf for more than one year. Children must be between grades 1 through 6. Parent’s of the children participating will also be surveyed accordingly. There will be a total of approximately

I find number 6.c interesting and disconcerting at the same time. I'm sure that isolating themselves is a learned behavior, probably because those who can hear do not know how to relate with someone who cannot hear. I have been blessed with the opportunity to travel a good part of this world. In my experience, people who are introverted usually find it difficult to learn about, and relate with, people who are different than themselves. Call it cultural agoraphobia.

The basic impoverishment of deafness is not lack of hearing but lack of language. To illustrate this, we have only to compare a 4-year-old hearing child, with a working vocabulary of between 2,000 and 3,000 words, to a child of the same age, profoundly deaf since infancy, who may have only a few words at his command. Even more important than vocabulary level, however, is the child's ability to use his language for expressing ideas, needs, and feelings. By the age of 4 years, the hearing child in all cultures has already grasped the rules of grammar syntax that enable him or her to combine words in meaningful ways.

Children with hearing loss vary in the degree they can hear, and the learning environment they have. As technology becomes more and more advanced, hearing aids and cochlear implants are more common. With these new changes, the deaf community might face a challenge that is new to them.

According to the NIDCD, approximately three births out of a population of a thousand will be born with a significant hearing loss in one or both ears. With this number rising, the need for specialized devices is at an all-time high. The use of hearing aids began in the 1800s, starting as more of a luxury item and not seen as a necessity, as they are today. By the early 1900s came a new era of understanding technology and incorporating it into everyday life. Hearing aids were typically worn around the neck carrying a heavy battery, which is said to only have lasted a few hours. The battery was then connected to a carbon microphone. Hearing aids popularity grew as they began to evolve to more practical for mobility. By the end of the 1990s, hearing aid technology allowed the user to adjust and filter the sound as needed for their day to day lifestyle. Today, hearing aids can fit on the tip of a finger and require no surgical input. However the performance of hearing aids has been surpassed by the cochlear implant. A cochlear implant is an electronic device that, unlike hearing aids, replace the sensation of sound by replacing the damaged inner part of the ear. This brings the issue of the growing cultural gap between the deaf community and the Speech- Language Pathologists who encourage the use of the implants. Those who receive the implants lose their cultural connection with those we are deaf. The deaf community believes that parents should not alter their child’s ability

“In American hearing culture, however, limited hearing is an impairment; parents and doctors in that culture find they have an obligation to alleviate that impairment if possible” (Bahan, Lane 1998). These biases may be present because of the advancement of hearing technology (hearing aids/cochlear implants). The Deaf community does not view deafness as an impairment or a health issue, but they think the hearing community does. Therefore, this hearing technology is unnecessary and unethical in the eyes of the deaf community. “Children who are merely Deaf are perfectly healthy, and it is unethical to operate on healthy children” (Bahan, Lane 1998). These advancements also provide a larger presence of LSL/oral communication options to be available for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. LSL can diminish the use of ASL and ultimately diminish the presence of younger children in the deaf community. “The presently thriving culture would diminish as well and possibly die. If so, the program of cochlear implantation in children, and the parental decisions that implemented it, would have as one effect the diminution or death of a minority culture” (Bahan, Lane