For A Deaf Son Documentary Analysis

While watching “History: Through Deaf Eyes” by PBS, I learned a lot about deaf culture and history. I already knew about certain events, like the rise of oral teaching and the protest for Gallaudet; however, listening to the stories from people who experienced these events gave me appreciation I did not have before. Also, learning how technology shaped deaf history was also very interesting, as well as the various options for deaf children today.

Throughout the documentary film Through Deaf Eyes, I felt amazed by deaf culture. The deaf culture is a versatile, rich, and unique community that more people need to be aware of. When the film was covering the transition of ASL schools to oral only I mostly felt ashamed of my own culture. Someone as Alexander Graham Bell, who is naturally considered one of the greatest inventors in the hearing world, believed that the language used by the deaf community was not a language. The hearing world is the most dominant one, there is no doubt. However, there has to be an understanding that not everyone who is different from the “typical” is “atypical”. A language is nothing but patterns of signs, symbols, and/or sounds that are used to convey meaning. In what manner does sign language not fit the category of a language?

Deafness is when a person’s hearing is impaired and they can hardly hear or not at all. As children, they usually do not know how to speak unlike others their age. Furthermore, they may also

Nancy Rourke, the painter of Deaf Culture: Unity of Global Signing, was born deaf and grew up in a world of oralism (Northen, Spindel). Oralism is when someone teaches a deaf person how to read lips and talk instead of teaching them to sign (Oralism). Rourke’s parents did not know she was deaf until she was about six years old but quit in 1986 to become a graphic designer. Twenty years later she was laid off and decided to begin painting again and took a couple of workshops to help prepare for the transition in her life. Her life transition did not begin until 2010 when she became involved in Deaf View / Image Art (De’VIA) and she began painting about her own experiences in the world of oralism (Rourke). Her painting, Deaf Culture: Unity of Global Signing, creates an image of problems within the deaf community

Members of the deaf community share common values, traditions, norms; and, most importantly, they share a language. Deaf people do not think of themselves as being handicapped, disabled or impaired and do not perceive themselves as having lost something. The deaf community does

Inside deaf culture is a very strong book written by carol Padden and tom Humphries in this book authors have tried to give a tour of the most important moments that has shaped the Deaf culture.

Speaking in the presence of a Deaf person is considered impolite. You are being disrespectful and inconsiderate, especially if you know ASL and choose to speak instead. By speaking, you exclude them from the conversation. I am definitely guilty about speaking rather than signing in the classroom. I really try to not speak during class but when people verbally ask me questions I feel obliged to answer them, and it is hard not to say the answer. I like signing in the classroom a lot, it allows for complete immersion into the language and is simply fun to do. Learning ASL is especially fun when voice is not being heard because you understand it on a deeper level and learn it better by figuring out what signs mean without speaking. You understand why the sign is what it is rather than just

The video, Deaf Ideology by Marika Kovacs-Houlihan, starts off by defining the term “Deaf”. Marika points out the term Deaf stimulates numerous questions in people’s minds such as “Can she hear?” or “Can she speak?”. These questions and thoughts lead to the topic of ideology. Ideology is a set of beliefs or ideas of a specific culture. Throughout the video, she explains that the ideologies some people have are limited. Marika gave numerous examples on how ideology is limited and suppressed, such as asking a question at the front desk and receiving special help because she is Deaf. Another example is being treated differently at school because sign language was discouraged and now allowed to be in use. Even when discussing career options, it leads to the thought that Deaf people can’t have a choice in their

For my stimulated hearing loss assignment I went to four different locations, which included ODU’s Café, CVS, the movie theater, and my apartment. I attendant these places with two of my friends who were also wearing earplugs. While completing this assignment I used HEAROS ear plugs, which had a NRR of 32.

Communication between the deaf parent/s and the hearing child is perhaps the most negative issue. Studies show that most deaf parents have no problem accepting their child’s ability to hear, but are aware that parenting forces them to address things they have no idea about. The stability of the family is affected by the flow of information and understanding of any given situation. With hearing families this is more open and the larger community, but the flow of information changes drastically with the addition of a deaf member; moreover, it can be severely restricted or all together blocked when families with deaf and hearing members do not have a mutual communication system. Although ASL is a legal language for family interaction, sometimes

discussion on the causes for the sensorineural hearing loss. The most interesting section of the

Imagine a world were you could not hear. The world would be mostly silent and you would have to rely completely on your other senses. This is what a deaf child encounters every day. When the word deaf is used it is referring to all levels of hearing loss. This includes partial loss, total loss, and everything in between. Deafness occurs when any part of the ear is not working correctly which inhibits the child from hearing correctly. This could be caused by genetic factors, prematurity, maternal diabetes, lack of oxygen in birth, ear infections, meningitis, measles, and so forth. Usually in infancy parents realize that their child is not reacting to sounds as appropriately as they should. A child is usually diagnosed with genetic deafness

As the term of Presbycusis or age-related hearing loss will be used interchangeably to describe the process of hearing loss throughout the study, this part of the introduction will highlight some salient characteristics of this process. The phrase of presbycusis is used to describe the clinical manifestations of ageing on the Auditory System and frequently has been blamed as the most common cause of hearing impairment in older people, causing a difficulty of understanding during verbal communication. The process of presbycusis is a biological phenomenon that grows significantly while people age and can have a profound repercussion on their lives, starting usually from 20-30 years of age and may become socially uncomfortable from the 40-50 years. However, the discomfiture generated by misunderstanding other people will encourage social withdrawal, isolation, psychological negative experiences of loneliness, anxiety and the most remarkable depression. Particularly in older person presbycusis influences the balance, placing them at a high risk of falls (Hidalgo, 2008).

Presbycusis or “age-related hearing loss (ARHL)” (Huang & Tang, 2010) is a hearing loss that is believed to be caused by combined effects of aging cell degeneration in the auditory system and noise exposure over time. (Niparko, J.K., 2010) Presbycusis may also result due to genetic factors, preexisting disorders of the ear, or presence of ototoxic elements. (Gates & Mills, 2005) Presbycusis is a growing concern for the elderly society, as it greatly effects communication. This deficit may create difficulties in “physical, cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and social function” (Huang & Tang, 2010) aspects of life for the elderly. Upon examining a patient with presbycusis, the most typical results display “bilateral, symmetrical sensorineural hearing loss affecting the higher frequencies, particularly 2,000-8,000 Hz.” (DeBonis, D., & Donohue, C., 2008) Patients with presbycusis often feel that speakers are mumbling in conversation. This is a frequent complaint of presbycusis patients due to higher frequency speech sounds (such as certain consonant sounds) being

The public perception of the concept of deafness is often misunderstood, many deem it to be insignificant mainly because the struggle that these deaf people go through on a day to day basis seems invisible to the public eye. Hence, people might not be able to show as much empathy as they would to a person with say, an amputated leg. A common misconception would be how most people assume that when a person is deaf, they live in a world of silence. This is not always the case. On the contrary, there is much more to it than what one always hears.