The Effects Of Deafness On Deaf Children

Deaf children born to deaf parents have the advantage of being exposed to gestural language from birth. American Sign Language (ASL) is the system used by the Deaf community in the United States and Canada. Although, Deaf children with Deaf parents are not receiving sensory input for spoken language, they are exposed to a language that will enable them to fully communicate meaning. Through the use of ASL, Deaf children have the ability to learn a language without the need for oral communication. In fact, there is evidence that suggest Deaf children acquire their first words before hearing children. Orlansky’s and Bonvillian’s study (1985), found the following information:

The book “A Journey into the Deaf-World”, by Harlan Lane, Robert Hoffmeister, and Ben Bahan, is about the different people who are considered deaf: hard-of-hearing, deaf, and CODA. People who are hard-of-hearing are people who don 't hear well; people who are deaf lack the power of hearing since birth; you can be born hearing and throughout time lose some or all of your hearing sense. People who are CODA (children of deaf adults) are often signing because their parents are deaf and CODA’s often are helpful by being interpreters. CODAs become a great link between their parents and the hearing world. This book explains about deaf culture and how sign is a visual and manual way of conversing. The benefits of sign language are many and the ASL “foreign language” is growing among hearing as well. About more than 500,000 people sign in America alone. ASL is dated from 1779, but probably even earlier. Sign language promotes cultural awareness; deaf culture uses sign language as their main form of communicating.

This semester I have learned a lot about deaf culture. I learned that deaf people do not want to be pitied because they are deaf, they like to live their lives to the fullest extent as possible. People in the deaf culture do everything that people in the hearing culture do, sometimes the way they do it slightly differs. Such as everyday ways of life, things as simple as listening to music, having conversations, and watching TV. Instead of being able to hear the music, they are able to feel the beat and vibrations made by the music. They have conversations by signing and making facial expressions, instead of using words; and the same with watching TV, instead of listening to the TV they read captions or sometimes even read is. The same things we do, as a hearing person, they just do it differently. I also found it interesting that people in the deaf culture are a lot more direct and friendly, than people in the hearing culture.

According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, about two to three children out of every 1,000 are born with a detectable level of hearing impairment in the United States. Without hearing, children miss out on the acoustic correlates of the physical world, such as car horns and footsteps. Children are also limited in their exposure to patterned complexities in music and spoken word. These hard of hearing and deaf students grow and develop in unique ways compared to their hearing peers because of the stimulus they do not have. Researchers have focused on how communication methods for hard of hearing and deaf children affect their development in the physical, social-emotional, cognitive and communicative

Bauman and Murray (2010) defines Deaf Studies as “interdisciplinary approaches to the exploration of Deaf individuals, communities, and cultures as they have evolved within a larger context of power and ideology” (p. 210). In other words, Deaf Studies refer to a specific academic field that studies deaf individuals and their unique communities and culture and may include constructs from anthropology, linguistics, bilingual education, disability, audiology, etc. Within the context of Deaf Studies, deaf individuals are no longer defined solely by their lack of hearing, but by their cultural, linguistic, and sensorial ways of being in the world (Bauman & Murray, 2010). That is why we hear people educated with Deaf Studies saying ASL kids to refer to deaf kids who use American Sign Language (ASL) system as their mode of communication or see them writing “Deaf” instead of “deaf” to give reference to the universally-recognized culture of people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The movie Trough Deaf Eyes shows us that Deaf people are just like everybody else. One individual in the movie said, "Being deaf is part of me, it's something I have to deal with, but it doesn't keep me from being happy. It's just like being tall instead of short." One thing that I thought was interesting, that was explained

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

Deaf is defined as partially or completely lacking the sense of hearing as to where Deaf culture refers to members of the Deaf community who share common values, traditions, norms, language and behaviors. According to the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders, three out of every 1,000 American children are born deaf or with hearing loss and 9 out of 10 of those children are born to fully-hearing parents. Most of these children who are deaf will attend public schools. By all, means teaching children who are deaf is not easy an easy task and can seem challenging for both the students and the teacher alike but it is certainly accomplishable. Therefore, in order for children who are deaf to succeed in a mainstream classroom, the teacher must first understand the Deaf culture and counteract stereotypes so that he or she may better serve students who are deaf. The article Deaf Culture Tip Sheet by Professor Linda Siple (2003) and Deaf Myths by the Minnesota Department of Human Services (2013) elaborates on these exact issues and provides a better insight on the culture of the Deaf community.

In light of Deaf Culture, it is truly fascinating how often hearing people rely on auditory information to obtain knowledge from their environment. An environment, in which all cultures live, typically releases some sort of auditory sound such as music, animal, human, and transportation noises. Likewise, the hearing culture has access to the latest information that our world continually creates or changes. The Deaf Culture does not have access to this auditory information that I have mentioned, but that does that make them any less of a culture. Instead of culturally evolving around auditory information, their culture matures through the sharing of information and stimulation of the eyes. Additionally, almost everything that I and the rest

According to the Deaf Culture Centre, Deaf Culture is defined as the “heart of the Deaf community everywhere in the world. Language and culture are inseparable. They are intertwined and passed down through generations of Deaf people.” It is estimated that nearly 20 percent of Americans live with some form of hearing loss, yet deaf and hard of hearing society members remain oppressed by the mainstream culture (Callis). These people that identify with the deaf culture, use American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate. ASL is a combination of hand signs and facial expressions that are unique to the Deaf community. Deaf people view deafness as a blessing and a unique way to live life. They are very proud and prideful. In the Deaf culture, the decision of getting a cochlear implant has been controversial for many years.

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

Hearing is something people take for granted because living without it, is not something a lot of people know. With not knowing or even understanding the struggles a Deaf person goes through, comes a sense of discrimination from lack of understanding. Deaf people are sometimes paired with being unintelligent, this makes an immediate association of deafness to dumb. This societal barrier is one where deaf people are looked down upon for something they have no control over. Deaf people lack the opportunity of acceptance to prove themselves as something other than their disability. The immediate abhor that is

The majority of deaf people do not see themselves as disabled, as hearing people are likely to. Rather, deaf people embrace their deafness as an integral part of who they are. The increasing use of hearing aids and cochlear implants are a concern to the deaf because it continually focuses on seeing deafness as a negative.

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,

The video, See What I Mean, by Tom Holcomb and Anna Mindess proceeds from the assumption that participants in Deaf culture acquire, use, and value information differently than hearing cultures, and that the external traits associated with Deaf culture: use of ASL, sharing of information, and loyalty/concern for the peer group are logical and necessary results of the d/Deaf commitment to acquire information through visual means. The video was first created in 2001, but updated in 2009 to include telecommunications advances such as VRS/TTY, video telephones, and personal pagers. It is my contention that these devices serve to extend or expand the visual field of a Deaf communicator but do not change the motivations underlying his/her behavior. A lighthearted and