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Deaf an 'invisible population, Rural Valley man says - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Paul Keenan, 67, of Rural Valley knows how to meet a challenge. He has overcome many in his lifetime, the biggest of which began when he was just 13 months old.
Shortly after turning a year old, Keenan contracted spinal meningitis and lost his hearing.
He said gaps in communication during many social interactions can be frustrating for individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing.
"We're an invisible population," Keenan said.
Keenan, who described himself as an "Army brat," spent 11 years in Germany and attended 22 different schools. He speaks flawless English and can speak some German. He lip-reads and has cochlear implants in both ears.
A cochlear implant helps someone with hearing loss understand speech because the device is able to bypass damaged areas of the ear, sending impulses to the auditory nerve. The device consists of two pieces: One that fits behind the ear, and the second, which is surgically placed under the skin in the temple region.
Nine years ago, after getting the hearing implants, Keenan said he became an outcast in the deaf community because he was seen as rejecting the signing way of communication in favor of his new thinking and hearing status.
"I'm in the middle of these two separate cultures," said Keenan. "In order to be independent, I decided to get the implants and do it for myself - not for the deaf community or the hearing community."
Keenan credits his mother for his speech and language development. His father was a sergeant major in the Army. In 1950, when he was 4, his mother took him for testing at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. She was not happy with what the center wanted to do.
At that time, he said, draftees sometimes tried to avoid serving in the Army by purposefully failing their hearing tests. As a deterrent, the military developed a test that delivered an electric shock each time a sound was emitted.
"My mother blew her top when they tried to do the test on me," Keenan said. Instead, she paid $50 to attend a group session at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va., where a speech therapist showed her how to teach her son to speak.
Keenan recalled how his mother started working with him 20 minutes a day. "She put one of my hands on her throat and one hand over her mouth to feel the vibration and breath as she spoke," Keenan said.
School and work
Keenan does not have many fond memories from his school days. He said his disability made him a target for bullies. When he was in first grade, he said his teacher didn't know what to do with him, so she seated him away from other students and gave him a coloring book and crayons.
A week after graduating from high school in San Francisco, Keenan arrived at Gallaudet University in Washington to pursue a degree in business management. Gallaudet specializes in educating deaf and hard-of-hearing undergraduates. First he had to learn American Sign Language, which he studied six to seven hours a day during the course of that summer.
Keenan faced a new set of challenges in his transition from college to work. After passing a civil service test, he was hired as an inventory management specialist at the Department of Defense Logistics Agency in Columbus, Ohio.
In spite of his early success, Keenan said he was not selected for career advancement, even though he consistently placed in the top five among his co-workers. So he filed a complaint, on two separate occasions, with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and won both cases.
"The deaf are easily intimidated and don't like to rock the boat because of an assumed fear of repercussions," Keenan said. He recalled how his deaf co-workers were seeing other people getting promoted. "Three out of 27 (deaf employees) learned to speak up for their rights and were able to progress," Keenan said.
In December 1990, Keenan was presented with the Outstanding Department of Defense Person with Disability Award in Washington.
Living in Armstrong
Keenan has since retired and moved to Armstrong County where he lives with his wife, Colleen.
Since relocating to the area, Keenan has had to look outside of the county to find agencies that provide services for members of the community who are hearing impaired. The Office of Vocational and Rehabilitation Services (OVR) for Armstrong, Beaver, Butler and Lawrence counties is located in New Castle.
There are 15 OVR offices in Pennsylvania, and each district office has at least one rehabilitation counselor for the deaf. Some of the services OVR provides include diagnostic services, vocational evaluation and training, counseling, assistance in obtaining rehabilitation equipment and employment services.
"My new caseworker is overwhelmed," Keenan said. "We're falling through the cracks."
Paul Keenan, 67, of Rural Valley knows how to meet a challenge. He has overcome many in his lifetime, the biggest of which began when he was just 13 months old.
Shortly after turning a year old, Keenan contracted spinal meningitis and lost his hearing.
He said gaps in communication during many social interactions can be frustrating for individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing.
"We're an invisible population," Keenan said.
Keenan, who described himself as an "Army brat," spent 11 years in Germany and attended 22 different schools. He speaks flawless English and can speak some German. He lip-reads and has cochlear implants in both ears.
A cochlear implant helps someone with hearing loss understand speech because the device is able to bypass damaged areas of the ear, sending impulses to the auditory nerve. The device consists of two pieces: One that fits behind the ear, and the second, which is surgically placed under the skin in the temple region.
Nine years ago, after getting the hearing implants, Keenan said he became an outcast in the deaf community because he was seen as rejecting the signing way of communication in favor of his new thinking and hearing status.
"I'm in the middle of these two separate cultures," said Keenan. "In order to be independent, I decided to get the implants and do it for myself - not for the deaf community or the hearing community."
Keenan credits his mother for his speech and language development. His father was a sergeant major in the Army. In 1950, when he was 4, his mother took him for testing at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. She was not happy with what the center wanted to do.
At that time, he said, draftees sometimes tried to avoid serving in the Army by purposefully failing their hearing tests. As a deterrent, the military developed a test that delivered an electric shock each time a sound was emitted.
"My mother blew her top when they tried to do the test on me," Keenan said. Instead, she paid $50 to attend a group session at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va., where a speech therapist showed her how to teach her son to speak.
Keenan recalled how his mother started working with him 20 minutes a day. "She put one of my hands on her throat and one hand over her mouth to feel the vibration and breath as she spoke," Keenan said.
School and work
Keenan does not have many fond memories from his school days. He said his disability made him a target for bullies. When he was in first grade, he said his teacher didn't know what to do with him, so she seated him away from other students and gave him a coloring book and crayons.
A week after graduating from high school in San Francisco, Keenan arrived at Gallaudet University in Washington to pursue a degree in business management. Gallaudet specializes in educating deaf and hard-of-hearing undergraduates. First he had to learn American Sign Language, which he studied six to seven hours a day during the course of that summer.
Keenan faced a new set of challenges in his transition from college to work. After passing a civil service test, he was hired as an inventory management specialist at the Department of Defense Logistics Agency in Columbus, Ohio.
In spite of his early success, Keenan said he was not selected for career advancement, even though he consistently placed in the top five among his co-workers. So he filed a complaint, on two separate occasions, with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and won both cases.
"The deaf are easily intimidated and don't like to rock the boat because of an assumed fear of repercussions," Keenan said. He recalled how his deaf co-workers were seeing other people getting promoted. "Three out of 27 (deaf employees) learned to speak up for their rights and were able to progress," Keenan said.
In December 1990, Keenan was presented with the Outstanding Department of Defense Person with Disability Award in Washington.
Living in Armstrong
Keenan has since retired and moved to Armstrong County where he lives with his wife, Colleen.
Since relocating to the area, Keenan has had to look outside of the county to find agencies that provide services for members of the community who are hearing impaired. The Office of Vocational and Rehabilitation Services (OVR) for Armstrong, Beaver, Butler and Lawrence counties is located in New Castle.
There are 15 OVR offices in Pennsylvania, and each district office has at least one rehabilitation counselor for the deaf. Some of the services OVR provides include diagnostic services, vocational evaluation and training, counseling, assistance in obtaining rehabilitation equipment and employment services.
"My new caseworker is overwhelmed," Keenan said. "We're falling through the cracks."