Supporting Hearing People

In this book, Deaf in America, by Carol Padden and Tom Humphries, the two authors wrote stories, jokes, performances, and experiences of Deaf people. They also wrote Deaf culture and Deaf people’s lives from various angles. This book is great navigator of Deaf world for hearing people and even Deaf people as me. There are several factors attracting reader. To begin with, I could learn about backgrounds of deaf people and hearing people. Authors wrote about a Deaf boy who was born into a deaf family. Until he discovered that a girl playmate in neighborhood was “hearing”, he didn’t notice about “Others”. Authors

Hearing people do view being deaf as a misfortune, but that does not justify the way that they get treated by hearing people. I think it's horrible how they are viewed as unable. I would hate to imagine someone treating me like I'm not able because I'm Hispanic or because I'm gay. It would tear me apart and I'm sure most deaf people feel the same way. Audism needs to be a bigger issue among hearing people and they need to know that being deaf is not a handicap, deaf

Deaf culture is like any bother minority culture with a set of their own beliefs, morals, values, traditions, and other things.Deaf people is part of one of the largest societies, but yet it is fascinating to come across someone who is death because we are used to sound and chaos everywhere.

Aside from communication and language, there are also such things as beliefs and customs that have lent towards the deaf and deaf-blind cultures. A positive attitude toward being deaf is typical in Deaf cultural groups. Deafness is not generally considered a condition that needs to be fixed. Culturally Deaf people value the use of natural sign languages that exhibit their own grammatical conventions, such as American Sign Language and British Sign Language, over signed versions of English or other spoken languages. Deaf culture in the United States tends to be collectivist rather than individualist; culturally Deaf people value the group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture#Values_and_beliefs). Culturally Deaf people have rules of etiquette for such things as, getting attention, walking through signed conversations, and otherwise politely negotiating a signing environment. It is also commonplace for them to arrive early for certain events, to ensure an optimum

The deaf community does not see their hearing impairment as a disability but as a culture which includes a history of discrimination, racial prejudice, and segregation. According to PBS home video “Through Deaf Eyes,” there are thirty-five million Americans that are hard of hearing (Hott, Garey & et al., 2007) . Out of the thirty-five million an estimated 300,000 people are completely deaf. There are over ninety percent of deaf people who have hearing parents. Also, most deaf parents have hearing children. With this being the exemplification, deaf people communicate on a more intimate and significant level with hearing people all their lives. “Deaf people can be found in every ethnic group, every region, and every economic class.” The

Take a second, close your eyes, and imagine silence. Nothing is going on around you; you can't even hear a pin drop. Not a sound to be heard for miles. You open your eyes expecting the world to come to life, and everything to breath wavelengths into your ears, but instead, you are met with an ocean of nothingness. People hustle about you, yelling at you to move out of their way, but still… nothing. This is the reality of a deaf person's world. Every day they wake up to this, and nothing more. When out in public, they must learn to communicate, to fend for themselves while the hearing go on with their lives as normal. We don't even realize how blessed we are as a hearing person, until it's gone. One way to dissolve this issue is by offering

We live in a world that is bounded by cultural norms and stereotypes that affect anyone who looks, acts, or is even born different. Our society narrowed scope views Deaf people as less, uneducated, and unworthy for the opportunities abled people are innately handed. There is a lack of opportunities that Deaf people received based on their disability in terms of jobs and acceptance. The feeling of acceptance is one thing the hearing community has felt at least once, if not their entire life, however it is a feeling that may be unknown to the Deaf community.

The Deaf community contains the basic characteristics of any particular ethnic group, despite the attempts from hearing people to destroy their culture through medical interventions. This community contains members who share a feeling of community. They value recognition by others and self-recognition (Lane). They feel strongly identified in their group, as they create a family environment, which provides support for each of its members. Moreover, the Deaf community has a set of norms for behavior. In decision-making processes, they try to agree on the course of action to take through consensus and not just by individual initiatives. Allegiance to their culture is also another distinct value that characterizes the members of this community. People with hearing impairments have the “highest rate of endogamous marriages of any

This topic is very important to me because I was raised in the Deaf culture. My entire family is Deaf and have faced many of these questions that hearing people are unaware about. I feel that it is my job to educate when I have the chance to do so. By being able to educate at least one person, I have done my job. I do not think there is enough information out there to reach everyone’s awareness of Deaf culture.

In mainstream American society, we tend to approach deafness as a defect. Helen Keller is alleged to have said, "Blindness cuts people off from things; deafness cuts people off from people." (rnib.org) This seems a very accurate description of what Keller's world must have been. We as hearing people tend to pity deaf people, or, if they succeed in the hearing world, admire them for overcoming a severe handicap. We tend to look at signing as an inferior substitute for "real" communication. We assume that all deaf people will try to lip-read and we applaud deaf people who use their voices to show us how far they have come from the grips of their disability. Given this climate, many hearing people are surprised, as I was at

The Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHOH) are understudied population and disproportionately impacted by cardiovascular diseases (CVD) due communication barriers (Mckee, Mckee, Winters, Sutter, & Pearson, 2014; McKee & Paasche-Orlow, 2012; Strong & Prinz, 1997). In considering the link between communication barriers and CVD attribute to insufficient English proficiency, inability to comprehend physicians’ spoken and written instructions, and inability to access community-based health outreach education programs in which all these surface factors increases the chance of DHOH developing CVD (McKee et al., 2011; Margellos-Anast, Estarziau, & Kaufman, 2006). The barriers that restrict access to health information suggest that

It is easy to see why Deaf culture is so critical of those who assimilate with hearing culture because the Deaf have had a history of struggle and discrimination. Hearing culture has been critical of what Deaf people are able to do and have denied their existence. In the past American deaf people have been denied the right to vote, to marry, and to raise children (Halpern). Deaf children often were denied education, grew up illiterate, or grew up with no real language because at one point in time sign language was not allowed (Halpern).

The deaf community does not see their hearing impairment as a disability but as a culture which includes a history of discrimination, racial prejudice, and segregation. According to an online transcript,“Through Deaf Eyes” (Weta and Florentine films/Hott productions Inc., 2007) there are thirty-five million Americans that are hard of hearing. Out of the thirty-five million an estimated 300,000 people are completely deaf. There are ninety percent of deaf people who have hearing parents (Halpern, C., 1996). Also, most deaf parents have hearing children. With this being the exemplification, deaf people communicate on a more intimate and significant level with hearing people all their lives. “Deaf people can be found in every ethnic group,

Deaf and hard of hearing people are just like us. They are not any different, but hears like us. There is some common misunderstanding, that is really annoying for Deaf and hard of hearing people. Those misunderstanding are can you understands us? Are you able to drive? Do you need a wheelchair? Can you read and write? Do deaf people have sex? Etc.…These kinds of questions annoyed deaf people the most. People do not realize that deaf people do not have as much as difficulty as normal folks thinks that they have. They can do almost everything and just as much no less. Sometime, they begged to be considered the same as hearing folks. They want to be equals, respected, and value just as much as hearing people. Sometime, we forgot to ask ourselves.

As a closing thought, please keep in mind the respect for “difference” that we all MUST have in this country. Deaf or hearing-impaired individuals are not necessarily “disabled”, but rather “different”. Although this difference may seem extremely complicated to the hearing world, it is one that is often embraced in the deaf world. Let us respect all people and their right to knowledge! Hopefully,