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Lynn's Struggle In Deaf Like Me

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The novel Deaf Like Me is an extremely compelling and inspirational story. The story revolves around a little girl named Lynn Spradley who was diagnosed with deafness at a very young age. The story is a timeline which takes the reader through the countless struggles that Lynn’s parents, Tom and Louise, encountered when learning to live with the deafness that Lynn was born with. Tom and Louise went through a long struggle to find out what was wrong with her daughter after she was born. Before she was born, Louise acquired a rubella rash. She went to her doctor and got a vaccination, but the doctor informed her that Lynn would be 25% susceptible to defects since her mom had rubella. When Lynn was born, she seemed completely normal and healthy, but the risk of congenital defects still loomed in Tom and Louis’ minds. Three months after Lynn was born, the family took Lynn to a fourth of July parade, and they noticed that Lynn didn’t seem flustered when the loud sirens passed by. Incredibly alarmed by this, Louise and Tom made sure to pay greater attention to see if something could be very wrong. After encountering plenty of hints to see that something was wrong, Louis brought Lynn to her doctor, Dr. Bales, and he explained to her that it would be difficult to see if she was deaf being …show more content…

They were also adamant on trying to teach Lynn to talk, even though she could not hear. In seminars that they attended, they got the impression that ASL was only used for retarded children, and they definitely did not want Lynn to be regarded as stupid. When Lynn was a little older, she was given a new hearing aid. When trying it on, though, it irritated her ears tremendously, so she did not want to wear it. Lynn started attending a school for the deaf in Oklahoma, where they practiced an oral method. Lynn and her family soon had to move to Sacramento, though, because Tom had been offered a new

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