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Student Life - A sign of change: a primer on deaf culture and controversy
For some of the 28 million Americans with profound hearing loss, deafness is more than a lack of hearing—it’s a way of life. To these people, deaf is a culture, complete with its own history and language.
St. Louis, however, is often seen as more of an “oral” city, where education is focused on teaching deaf and hard of hearing children to listen and speak with the assistance of modern advanced hearing aids and cochlear implants. St. Louis has four deaf elementary schools, three of which are oral and one of which is mixed oral and sign language. The purpose of these schools is to prepare students to enter a mainstream high school.
“It can be difficult,” Ellie Rice, a teacher at the Central Institute for the Deaf, said. “Social language is especially hard to teach.”
The Central Institute for the Deaf is part of the Washington University School of Medicine and is connected to the Program in Audiology and Communication Sciences, which teaches audiology and deaf education. The School of Medicine is also involved in ongoing cochlear implant research.
Missouri does have a sign language-based school in Fulton, Mo. American Sign Language (ASL), the language of manual communication used by deaf people, is an entirely separate language from English. The syntax and grammar is different and is based on French Sign Language rather than British Sign. Most countries have their own sign language, and many cities, including St. Louis, have their own local words and dialects.
With the local emphasis on oral education, deaf culture can be hard to find in St. Louis, but it is not nonexistent. One can find deaf clubs, deaf sports teams and deaf churches, among other things. The Greater St. Louis Association of the Deaf is a good resource for finding these types of connections.
To get a better idea of what the deaf community was like before modern technology, it helps to talk to older members of the community. A few could be found at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, the nearest deaf church to the University.
“The Deaf Churches were the center of the activity in the Deaf community prior to the 1960s,” pastor Richard Moody said. “It is now true that the deaf, in many ways, don’t need the Deaf Church since all the services done by the pastors of the Churches prior to 1970 are now done by many other organizations. The services are great and important for the deaf and their integration in the world; however, the services have also divorced the deaf from their need for Jesus as their Savior.”
“I feel more comfortable here,” elderly church member Betty Healy said. “In a hearing church, I feel lost and confused. It’s not easy to make friends with hearing people; they don’t know how to communicate with me.”
Many of the older members expressed memories of being ostracized in their youth, having difficulties learning in school and communicating with peers.
“They’d laugh at my sign and think I was stupid,” Rygel Healy said. “The school I went to didn’t allow sign. I stayed in one room with a teacher and a typewriter. I later went to a hearing high school, but I couldn’t get enough education. I quit and got my GED later.”
Deaf education was and still is a controversial subject. Some members of the deaf community, like the Healys, are staunch proponents of sign education for both deaf children and their parents. However, Justine Preston, an ASL interpreter and teacher of the manual communication course at the University, explains the difficult reality.
“Imagine you give birth to a child, and the doctor tells you ‘This baby is Japanese. In addition to working and raising a new baby, you’re going to have to go out and learn Japanese to communicate with your child. And you’d better go do it fast so it doesn’t fall behind in language,’” Preston said.
Cochlear implants have supplanted oral education as the latest source of controversy. Cochlear implants, a form of hearing aid implanted directly in the inner ear, give hearing abilities to many who were unable to hear before. The implants can be given to babies only a few months old, allowing a new level of success in oral education and a lack of a need for sign language or deaf communities. This naturally has caused a wave of backlash from more traditional deaf communities.
“Cochlear implants are fracturing the community. Parents have always gone for the “fix” for deaf, the same promise the oral schools offered parents, instead of accepting that their children have their own language and [then] learning that language,” Moody said. “Eighty percent of the deaf in Illinois 10 years ago went to the School for the Deaf in Jacksonville or other deaf education programs. Now only 20 percent are in those programs and 80 percent are in new programs to teach them how to use and understand what they hear through their cochlear implants. If the implants all worked well for all those that receive them, then I guess the argument would be moot. However, when 50 percent of the kids that receive them do not want to use them for various reasons, then it does become an important issue that people should discuss.”
However, Doug Hyde, a senior, who has both a hearing aid and cochlear implant, disagrees.
“Personally, I think that if the child will benefit from the implant, then they should get it at birth. If an implant is not needed, then properly-fitted hearing aids are a must,” Hyde said. “If my parents had not made sure I had the best hearing aids available, I would not be where I am today.”
There is no easy solution to the debates on oral education or cochlear implants, nor is there any telling what the future holds for deaf communities.
“It’s not like the ‘old days’ when the Deaf Club met every week and had high attendance,” Preston said. “It is a different sort of culture than it was even a few years ago, partly due to technological advances. With e-mail, text messaging and videophones, it is less imperative for all the local deaf people to gather in one place on a frequent basis.”
For some of the 28 million Americans with profound hearing loss, deafness is more than a lack of hearing—it’s a way of life. To these people, deaf is a culture, complete with its own history and language.
St. Louis, however, is often seen as more of an “oral” city, where education is focused on teaching deaf and hard of hearing children to listen and speak with the assistance of modern advanced hearing aids and cochlear implants. St. Louis has four deaf elementary schools, three of which are oral and one of which is mixed oral and sign language. The purpose of these schools is to prepare students to enter a mainstream high school.
“It can be difficult,” Ellie Rice, a teacher at the Central Institute for the Deaf, said. “Social language is especially hard to teach.”
The Central Institute for the Deaf is part of the Washington University School of Medicine and is connected to the Program in Audiology and Communication Sciences, which teaches audiology and deaf education. The School of Medicine is also involved in ongoing cochlear implant research.
Missouri does have a sign language-based school in Fulton, Mo. American Sign Language (ASL), the language of manual communication used by deaf people, is an entirely separate language from English. The syntax and grammar is different and is based on French Sign Language rather than British Sign. Most countries have their own sign language, and many cities, including St. Louis, have their own local words and dialects.
With the local emphasis on oral education, deaf culture can be hard to find in St. Louis, but it is not nonexistent. One can find deaf clubs, deaf sports teams and deaf churches, among other things. The Greater St. Louis Association of the Deaf is a good resource for finding these types of connections.
To get a better idea of what the deaf community was like before modern technology, it helps to talk to older members of the community. A few could be found at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, the nearest deaf church to the University.
“The Deaf Churches were the center of the activity in the Deaf community prior to the 1960s,” pastor Richard Moody said. “It is now true that the deaf, in many ways, don’t need the Deaf Church since all the services done by the pastors of the Churches prior to 1970 are now done by many other organizations. The services are great and important for the deaf and their integration in the world; however, the services have also divorced the deaf from their need for Jesus as their Savior.”
“I feel more comfortable here,” elderly church member Betty Healy said. “In a hearing church, I feel lost and confused. It’s not easy to make friends with hearing people; they don’t know how to communicate with me.”
Many of the older members expressed memories of being ostracized in their youth, having difficulties learning in school and communicating with peers.
“They’d laugh at my sign and think I was stupid,” Rygel Healy said. “The school I went to didn’t allow sign. I stayed in one room with a teacher and a typewriter. I later went to a hearing high school, but I couldn’t get enough education. I quit and got my GED later.”
Deaf education was and still is a controversial subject. Some members of the deaf community, like the Healys, are staunch proponents of sign education for both deaf children and their parents. However, Justine Preston, an ASL interpreter and teacher of the manual communication course at the University, explains the difficult reality.
“Imagine you give birth to a child, and the doctor tells you ‘This baby is Japanese. In addition to working and raising a new baby, you’re going to have to go out and learn Japanese to communicate with your child. And you’d better go do it fast so it doesn’t fall behind in language,’” Preston said.
Cochlear implants have supplanted oral education as the latest source of controversy. Cochlear implants, a form of hearing aid implanted directly in the inner ear, give hearing abilities to many who were unable to hear before. The implants can be given to babies only a few months old, allowing a new level of success in oral education and a lack of a need for sign language or deaf communities. This naturally has caused a wave of backlash from more traditional deaf communities.
“Cochlear implants are fracturing the community. Parents have always gone for the “fix” for deaf, the same promise the oral schools offered parents, instead of accepting that their children have their own language and [then] learning that language,” Moody said. “Eighty percent of the deaf in Illinois 10 years ago went to the School for the Deaf in Jacksonville or other deaf education programs. Now only 20 percent are in those programs and 80 percent are in new programs to teach them how to use and understand what they hear through their cochlear implants. If the implants all worked well for all those that receive them, then I guess the argument would be moot. However, when 50 percent of the kids that receive them do not want to use them for various reasons, then it does become an important issue that people should discuss.”
However, Doug Hyde, a senior, who has both a hearing aid and cochlear implant, disagrees.
“Personally, I think that if the child will benefit from the implant, then they should get it at birth. If an implant is not needed, then properly-fitted hearing aids are a must,” Hyde said. “If my parents had not made sure I had the best hearing aids available, I would not be where I am today.”
There is no easy solution to the debates on oral education or cochlear implants, nor is there any telling what the future holds for deaf communities.
“It’s not like the ‘old days’ when the Deaf Club met every week and had high attendance,” Preston said. “It is a different sort of culture than it was even a few years ago, partly due to technological advances. With e-mail, text messaging and videophones, it is less imperative for all the local deaf people to gather in one place on a frequent basis.”