Personal Narrative: My Experience Of Becoming A Child With Severe Hearing Loss

Louise was informed by doctors and Friends not to use gestures or sign to Lynn but to only talk to her and treat her as a normal child so that she someday may become oral and learn to speak.

I too was able to relate to this section. My uncle was born Deaf and married a Deaf woman they had three hearing children and one Deaf. It was interesting to read that the oldest daughter usually takes on the role of interpreter whether or not they are the oldest and this proved to be true in my family’s situation. I am sure she struggled with this but in all the years growing up I never heard her complain once and she has now become an interpreter for the Deaf as a profession. I am certain that she didn’t interpret everything to her parents because uneducated people can be cruel and I am sure she still carries some of that with her. I also found that the way people wanted the Deaf to be educated was quite interesting. My grandmother never

Living with hearing loss wasn’t always an enjoyable experience. Growing up, I gradually became more and more self-conscious of my hearing loss. Sometimes, I became so anxious that I kept asking people to repeat themselves just because I didn’t think I heard them correctly the first time. Most of the time, I simply needed to relax in order to comprehend what the other person was saying–I discovered later on that playing the piano and exercising allowed me to maintain my composure.

My first recollection of meeting my first deaf person was in elementary school in Sandpoint, Idaho. She was a fellow classmate of mine in fifth grade. I remember clearly, the first time I met her. Unfortunately I did not leave a great first impression due to my curiosity and overzealousness to create fast friends. She sat two seats away for me. I decided on the second day of class that I wanted her to be my friend despite any apparent interest on her end.

My perspective on hearing loss as a disability or difference that is always on my mind and I never thought to be deaf or hard of hearing as a disability. One day, in the classroom at the University, a professor was discussing the list of disabilities. My interpreter asked me a personal question, “do you think you're deaf as a disability?” honestly I have paused and made me pondering for a few seconds. “Yes, I am deaf, and I don’t think myself as a person with a disability just because of hearing loss. However,

I grew up at a Deaf residential school. For most of the time I slept there at the dorm. We –they had a night supervisor who also slept on site. Aww, she was such a very sweet old women. She retired at her old job and got a new job here at the Deaf residential school where I was staying. It was four of us girls she would watch. Nine-nine-thirty the lights were out. But at midnight, me and my three roommates decided we’d meet at- meet up. So I waited till midnight. I kept looking at my clock- is it time, is it time? And then the clock struck midnight. Me and my friends we met up. One of the girl had a boyfriend who came back from Canada. He had bought a whole sack of c-f- firecrackers when he was there. They’re not allowed here in the states but he bought them anyway.

This Is What It Is like to Be Deaf from Birth is a story about Cristina Hartman, explaining her personal experiences with a profound hearing loss (becoming deaf). Throughout Cristina’s experiences she explains, that being born deaf is quite normal; in other ways, it's not. She talked about things she did that were “normal” such as playing sports, playing with kids in the neighborhood, joining a sorority in college, and talking back to her parents. But with experiencing “normal” things she had to experience situations that were not normal, such as having to learn ASL, becoming a part of the schools deaf program, and identifying herself into a culture other than her parents. Early in her childhood, Cristina got a cochlear implant. The implant

As an undergraduate, I performed research on deafness, investigating hearing regeneration and unique auditory phenotypes. Based on my work, I was selected to be a Post-Baccalaureate Fellow at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders within the National Institutes of Health. This is a two-year program (07/14-07/16). I lead three projects focused on novel clinical therapies to prevent hearing loss from ototoxic drugs—drugs that cause hearing loss in hundreds of thousands of patients. There exists the need for therapies that protect the inner ear from ototoxic drugs without altering their therapeutic effects, and the focus of my research has been to help develop novel therapies.

    Keenan’s hearing began to degenerate at the age of four. Fortunately, he had surgery as a young boy and received cochlear implants, which enable sound to be transferred to the hearing nerves and allow him to hear. Cochlear implants allow Keenan to experience most of the world’s natural sounds. When he takes them off, everything is completely silent. Although his implants enhance his life tremendously and provide him an opportunity to hear again, they

“To the airport!” then the cheers got even louder, I swear I went deaf for a couple seconds. Halfway to the airport and our car was like a party, blasting music that overflowed my ears and felt like a volcano explosion, man I was having the time of my life; But it felt like that feeling fell apart when my dad pulled to the side for the third time and I was really, really confused. I knew everyone probably figured out what was going on except me. Then my dad said everything was okay and soon we were back on the highway. My cousin shouted something over the music to my dad and I think he heard it because next thing you know we’re pulling over again. My dad told everyone to get their things and get out of the car as quick as they can. I was scared

On Tuesday, October 20, 2015 I entered the School for the Deaf & Blind for the second time. I wasn’t exactly excited about it, but I wasn’t bored by it either. I had a calm yet eerie feeling about it. It turned out to be a good day overall though. There wasn’t much science and medicine to the mix, but to develop a relationship whether it was just one for a short period of time or if I was to have a lasting effect on the students was good enough. Although the teachers warned me about the "violence" or "acting out" that the students portrayed, they didn’t act like that toward me; and that made me feel better about communicating with them. The following day I had to go to a clinical site known as Florence Chapel Middle School in Duncan. There

Hello I am Marcus Mims from Glen Ellyn, Illinois . I was born prematurely at 26 weeks only weighing 1 pound 8 ounces. That lead to other problems such as my diagnosis with Hydrocephalus at three months long and taking speech therapy for 10 years. Hydrocephalus is a condition, which causes a build-up of fluid in the ventricles of the Brain. The treatment for Hydrocephalus is a shunt, which requires surgery to fix the shunt if it starts to malfunction.Both conditions effected me in different ways, which has helped me be the most person I am today. Going to speech therapy for 10 years was difficult, many kids would make fun of me because it and that was something that only made me stronger as a person. But my Hydrocephalus has had the most impact

I am most proud of my ability to play the violin. I joined orchestra in the 6th grade. I discovered that I like orchestra better than any of my other classes. I struggle with academic classes especially math but for me orchestra was easy. I was born with a 22q deletion. I have learning disabilities and an auditory processing disorder. I use an FM system with a set of hearing aid to help me hear my teachers in class. At first, I did not wear my hearing aids to Orchestra class because I thought the music would be too loud, but I discovered that I could not hear Mr. Mauney counting. I talked to my parents and decided to wear one hearing aid and have Mr. Mauney wear the microphone so I could hear him. I left the other ear free so that I

At the age of 2, I lost my hearing in Pakistan from a disease called meningitis. When I was 4, my family and I to came to America to explore hearing options. Before coming to America, I had no formal communication, I couldn’t speak or sign. My mom also wanted me to be a part of the hearing culture because I needed to learn English and Urdu so I can communicate with family members. My mom worked with our doctor and I received the cochlear implant. It was so I could communicate in the hearing world and be able to talk and hear. After I got my surgery, I began school and was isolated between hearing and deaf kids. My hearing loss was leaning towards the deaf culture but I wanted to stay with the hearing culture and I did. In the deaf culture,

In this society, people try to understand other types of cultures and groups, however, that does not always happen. There are people who have many misconceptions and others that just make stereotypes about a group. People are being misjudged because of all the stereotypes being made. Misconceptions and stereotypes are two different terms. However, both are direct to a certain group. Every person sees a group differently, that is why there are many stereotypes and misconceptions. Men and women have different points of view, resulting in different kinds of stereotypes. Deaf people are perceived as people who need to get “fixed”, who are not capable of anything, and who are freaks.