Miss-Delectable
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- Apr 18, 2004
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HOW I SEE IT: Note, the word Deaf is to be capitalized | Star-Exponent
In public, being stared at while chatting in gesture or American Sign Language is old news. Why is it more intense lately?
Perhaps "Switched at Birth" shown on ABC Family channel is the cause?
If you haven't seen this, the plot is about two 16-year old girls who were switched at birth.
One is Deaf and the other is hearing - the families meet and conflicts inevitably arise.
It's nice that the general awareness is being cultivated: cochlear implants aren't always wanted nor do they work for everyone and more importantly - showing Deaf people as a cultural and linguistic group rather than an isolated hearing impaired individuals.
Yet it's troubling that the Deaf girl, Daphne, is shown to possess unrealistic lip reading ability. Ac-cording to the experts, English is 35% visible on the lips.
Researcher Albert Mehrabian's 1960 work suggested that 60 to 70 percent of spoken language is actually derived from body cues.
Writing and gesturing is how Deaf people chat with non-signers yet not one Deaf characters has ex-change notes with non-signers.
One episode seems to imply hearing people are never in danger of kitchen fires or car accidents. Factoid: Deaf people have greater peripheral vision.
Currently 85% of Deaf children attend a hearing school with some services.
What the show implied but wasn't directly addressed is the fact that any time a Deaf child is in a non-signing environment, he/she is in the most restrictive environment.
If the child is in an 'oral only' program then the amount of information he/she gets is limited.
Hearing babies' intelligence is heightened by the use of ASL/Baby signs. Deaf babies are denied this same opportunity.
Their parents are told by most audiologists, doctors and other invested experts NOT to sign to their deaf baby.
This mindset is as ironic as it is moronic.
The show also doesn't address the alarming statistics of Deaf children being raised in an oral-only method are failing by the time they arrive to middle school/high school.
(Years ago Deaf children were educated in a full signing environment and were academically on par with their hearing peers.
But then things changed in 1880, almost all the Deaf teachers were fired, and Deaf education was taught orally.)
Generalities and unrealistic lip reading skills aside, 'Switched at Birth' is beneficial in showing the general public that Deaf people are just like anyone else.
We use our eyes instead of our ears and many of us wouldn't change that for all the money in the world.
In public, being stared at while chatting in gesture or American Sign Language is old news. Why is it more intense lately?
Perhaps "Switched at Birth" shown on ABC Family channel is the cause?
If you haven't seen this, the plot is about two 16-year old girls who were switched at birth.
One is Deaf and the other is hearing - the families meet and conflicts inevitably arise.
It's nice that the general awareness is being cultivated: cochlear implants aren't always wanted nor do they work for everyone and more importantly - showing Deaf people as a cultural and linguistic group rather than an isolated hearing impaired individuals.
Yet it's troubling that the Deaf girl, Daphne, is shown to possess unrealistic lip reading ability. Ac-cording to the experts, English is 35% visible on the lips.
Researcher Albert Mehrabian's 1960 work suggested that 60 to 70 percent of spoken language is actually derived from body cues.
Writing and gesturing is how Deaf people chat with non-signers yet not one Deaf characters has ex-change notes with non-signers.
One episode seems to imply hearing people are never in danger of kitchen fires or car accidents. Factoid: Deaf people have greater peripheral vision.
Currently 85% of Deaf children attend a hearing school with some services.
What the show implied but wasn't directly addressed is the fact that any time a Deaf child is in a non-signing environment, he/she is in the most restrictive environment.
If the child is in an 'oral only' program then the amount of information he/she gets is limited.
Hearing babies' intelligence is heightened by the use of ASL/Baby signs. Deaf babies are denied this same opportunity.
Their parents are told by most audiologists, doctors and other invested experts NOT to sign to their deaf baby.
This mindset is as ironic as it is moronic.
The show also doesn't address the alarming statistics of Deaf children being raised in an oral-only method are failing by the time they arrive to middle school/high school.
(Years ago Deaf children were educated in a full signing environment and were academically on par with their hearing peers.
But then things changed in 1880, almost all the Deaf teachers were fired, and Deaf education was taught orally.)
Generalities and unrealistic lip reading skills aside, 'Switched at Birth' is beneficial in showing the general public that Deaf people are just like anyone else.
We use our eyes instead of our ears and many of us wouldn't change that for all the money in the world.
