Can you tell me about oral successes?

I'm HoH (with hearing aids)and I have a Puerto Rican accent. I grew up speaking both english and Spanish. Can't help it xD
 
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RandomHearie - drphil was born hearing and then later slowly became hoh, then deaf, then got a CI. That is a very different situation than those of us who were born hoh or deaf.
 
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RandomHearie said:
Cool, thank you. Does that make speaking easier for him?
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Seriously?
 
Well, it seems like it should, since he learned to do it while hearing and since CIs are designed to make speech understandable. But since the last zillion assumptions I made were wrong, I figured I'd ask.
 
Think of it this way... you know how to write, right? Well imagine tomorrow you went blind, you would not be able to write the same because you don't have that instant feedback on what you are writing.

Ditto for hearing, if you lost you hearing now you can't hear yourself for reference. That's why when I talk I recall from memory how to say certain sounds rather than hearing myself.
 
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RandomHearie said:
Well, it seems like it should, since he learned to do it while hearing and since CIs are designed to make speech understandable. But since the last zillion assumptions I made were wrong, I figured I'd ask.
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If you're born hearing - and have heard and used soeech for years, even decades, then you have a very solid auditory memory. You also acquire language in a natural "hearing way" (just by passively listening and overhearing things in everyday life)
This means that even if you go deaf, you still know how to speak, what words sound like - you are a hearing person, who's become hoh or deaf.

If you are born hoh or deaf (or go either in the first few years) then you never have that 'hearing reference' - you've never heard what speech "really" sounds like, what your voice is really like etc. Learning to understand speech is a deliberate process, like learning math.

Hearing people who become hoh or deaf are in an entirely different (aural language) situation than those who are born hoh or deaf.

Picture trying to speechread the tv on an English tv show you've already watched with sound ... You can guess much easier because you can match your internal memory to what you're seeing.

Then try watching a tv station which broadcasts in a language you don't know ... How well do you think you'd do? That's what it's like being hoh or deaf from birth (or prelignually hoh or deaf)
 
You describe an "oral success" in terms of "faking", "pretending" and "acting." In this video, Sophie is a deaf actor pretending to be a hearing actor who is pretending to be deaf: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uloiaDLX7dc]Deaf Faker. Episode 1. Sophie Woolley - YouTube[/ame]

I've found that people I know well who are deaf and consider themselves to be "oral successes" tend to have many different interpretations of that term, just as you might have a different idea of what it means to be a "female success" or "public school success" than I do. And while some may have felt they were "faking" their success, others may feel they really have succeeded in a primarily oral environment, without pretending to be something they aren't.
 
Wow, thank you for showing me that video! So, the actress can speak normally because she was hearing when she learned, right? Cool.

Also, the character she's playing (the hearing one in the middle of the ridiculous recursion) is an absolute idiot. Is that the kind of stupidity you guys deal with in real life?

And thank you for that explanation.
 
RandomHearie said:
Also, the character she's playing (the hearing one in the middle of the ridiculous recursion) is an absolute idiot. Is that the kind of stupidity you guys deal with in real life?
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Yup ... all the bloody time.

(Which, by the way is why when new hearing people come on here, who know nothing about Deaf Culture, Sign, etc but "love us" we are sometimes "short" with them - picture dealing with that junk day in and day out all the time... you'd get snarky occasionally too.)
 
RandomHearie said:
Wow, thank you for showing me that video! So, the actress can speak normally because she was hearing when she learned, right? Cool.

Also, the character she's playing (the hearing one in the middle of the ridiculous recursion) is an absolute idiot. Is that the kind of stupidity you guys deal with in real life?

And thank you for that explanation.
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It's a really clever web series. I think she pretty much nails her character accurately. Figured this might be relevant to your questions. What do you think, is she a good example of an "oral success" given the way she fakes, acts, and pretends to be a hearie, despite being deaf?
 
GrendelQ said:
It's a really clever web series. I think she pretty much nails her character accurately. Figured this might be relevant to your questions. What do you think, is she a good example of an "oral success" given the way she fakes, acts, and pretends to be a hearie, despite being deaf?
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Of course (in the 4 I saw) we don't really see her interacting with others ... so while she may speak well (?) etc ... it only gives one side of the equation.

For most of us (as you know GrendelQ) it's not the talking side, but the listening/understanding side of conversations which are the most challenging and hard to "fake".
 
Anij said:
Of course (in the 4 I saw) we don't really see her interacting with others ... so while she may speak well (?) etc ... it only gives one side of the equation.

For most of us (as you know GrendelQ) it's not the talking side, but the listening/understanding side of conversations which are the most challenging and hard to "fake".
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Exactly!
 
Anij, that makes sense. So you're wary of new hearies because (from long experience) you expect them to start treating you like either a poor afflicted soul or a self-narrating zoo exhibit?

Wow, I hadn't really realized, but it's possible to seem totally hearing but not necessarily understand a word anyone's saying, isn't it? In hindsight that ought to have been obvious, but I didn't think of it until now. So, do late-deafened people usually join Deaf Culture?
 
Anij said:
Of course (in the 4 I saw) we don't really see her interacting with others ... so while she may speak well (?) etc ... it only gives one side of the equation.

For most of us (as you know GrendelQ) it's not the talking side, but the listening/understanding side of conversations which are the most challenging and hard to "fake".
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That's not to say that speaking is easy. Most of us approach it as a forign language, and it ALSO takes a lot of energy. Those of us who are dhh learn the same vocal techniques that singers and actors use. Imagine how exhausting it would be to constantly use those techniques (which most hearing people don't use)
 
deafdyke said:
That's not to say that speaking is easy. Most of us approach it as a forign language, and it ALSO takes a lot of energy. Those of us who are dhh learn the same vocal techniques that singers and actors use. Imagine how exhausting it would be to constantly use those techniques (which most hearing people don't use)
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Right - it's a lot of work to learn to speak clearly, when we can't actually HEAR the sounds others, or ourselves make ... or at the best, hear them differently.

Even those who DO end up with "fluid speech", struggle with certain sounds (it took me almost 18years to say "regular" correctly and I still avoid that word like the plague!!)

The advantage with speech - is that when we are speaking, WE control what is being said and can mould things so that we can anticipate the other person's response. Of course, once the other (hearing) person starts talking ... things can quickly turn into a massive "high stakes guessing game".

Hearing people have no idea how EXHAUSTING it is to speak & listen if you are hoh or deaf!!
 
Wow! Thank you for all of that information! It must feel really infuriating when people expect you to read lips and stuff, since it's so much more difficult than they know. Is that correct?

It's awesome of you guys to take the time to explain this stuff. :D :ty:
 
Anij said:
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RandomHearie - you are aware that only maximum 30% of speech is actually visible on the lips/mouth ... The rest is all guess work.
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Yes, lip-reading is an extremely complicated guessing game that requires very rapid, adaptive algorithms. The worse your hearing is, the more gaps you have to fill in until finally, nothing your algorithms come up with makes sense. There is only so far you can go with missing information. Sometimes, you realize at the end of the decoding that what you came up with is wrong, and you have to go back and refigure it within a second or two. Add an international clientele at our location, and you've got a challenge. Has anyone in the US dealt with a British version of Boomhauer from King of the Hill? I get those from time to time, and that's my limit. No can do. "David, I will take your customer for mine. Please..." I've had to ask for accommodations at my retail job by asking for breaks from the sales floor with stocking duties (we are reaching a very big store category as business continues to grow here). I'm scheduled to do one or two stocking shifts as relief from constant lip-reading in per week.
 
I guess all I can say is :hmm:
Certainly some food for thought in this thread.
 
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