Deaf Awareness Month

One of the earliest examples of a Deaf community can be found in ancient Egypt, where sign language was used to communicate with Deaf individuals. Similarly, in ancient Greece, Plato wrote about using sign language among Deaf people. Throughout the centuries, Deaf communities have formed in many different regions of the world, including Europe, Asia, and the Americas. 

The establishment of schools for the Deaf in the 18th and 19th centuries played a crucial role in the development of Deaf culture. These schools, which were often founded by religious organizations, provided a space for Deaf individuals to come together, learn, and communicate with each other. Over time, these schools became important centers of Deaf culture, fostering the development of sign languages, arts, and other cultural practices. 

One of the most significant events in American Deaf history occurred in the early 19th century when Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet founded the first school for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. With the help of Laurent Clerc, a Deaf educator from France, Gallaudet established the American School for the Deaf, which paved the way for the development of American Sign Language (ASL). 

Over the next century, Deaf culture flourished in the United States as Deaf people began to publicly assert their identity and advocate for their rights. Deaf clubs and organizations were established, Deaf newspapers and publications were created, and ASL became recognized as a legitimate language.

[T]he key event in history that strengthened deaf culture was the 1988 Deaf President Now movement at Gallaudet University. A huge protest erupted at the time when a hearing person was chosen to be the 7th president of the institution, while running against two other deaf professionals. After days of protesting and students having taken over the campus, the hearing candidate resigned and Dr. I. King Jordan, a deaf professor, was appointed the new president. 

The movement received international media attention and is now known as the deaf community’s seminal civil rights accomplishment. It is important to highlight that Gallaudet is an important icon for deaf culture, being the only liberal arts college for deaf students in the world. 

Here’s the thing people often get wrong: BASL isn’t simply ASL performed by a Black interpreter. BASL is its own language variety – a distinct dialect that developed inside historically segregated African American deaf communities, shaped by generations of shared experiences, culture, and history. Like other language varieties, it has its own phonology, syntax, vocabulary, grammar, signing style, and expression. One community member put it simply: BASL is like Ebonics, developed naturally within the Black community. It wasn’t formally created or taught – it evolved through community, culture, and lived experience.

There are some things in life you know will happen, but they don't seem real. When you're a kid, you know you'll grow up, but you cannot imagine what it will feel like. You know you'll eventually die, but you don't spend every moment thinking about it.

That's how I felt nine years ago, at 19, when a doctor told me I was going to be both deaf and blind one day. I was scared, of course, but when you've always seen and heard, you can't comprehend life any other way. Only in the past year have I begun to understand what complete silence and darkness could be like.

I got my first hearing aids in high school, but I would only wear them with my hair down, and only in history class because the teacher mumbled. At least I had the built-in coolness that came with being a twin. I was good at sports (so long as it wasn't a game with a small ball — those were becoming hard to see). And yet, I was starting to feel I didn't quite belong.

Maybe I was seeking control in a chaotic situation, but soon I was wrestling with anorexia and exercise bulimia. I'd work out four to six hours a day until I went into rehab for a month after graduation. At least I was just as compulsive about my schoolwork: I asked other people to take notes for me. In one class, a girl had live closed-captioning at her desk; I read over her shoulder. I did well, graduating with honors.

Sometimes, my brain tries to compensate for lost peripheral vision by creating images. For a while, I kept a frying pan by my desk because when I was at my computer, I would think I saw a man walking by the door out of the corner of my eye. No one was there. I used to love going to the movies, but it's tiring since I'm constantly scanning my environment. Still, I teach eight Spinning classes a week — they're often in the dark, and I've memorized the layout of each Spin room. I think my students would be surprised to find out the person telling them to pedal harder can barely hear or see them.

My doctors say it's possible that I will completely lose my hearing and vision in just a few years. It's finally becoming believable. But I think I'm ready to deal with it. I'll soon be a candidate for a cochlear implant, which will require major surgery but could drastically improve my hearing. If all goes well, I'll never live in total silence. But one of these days, I'll actually start using that cane. I try to stay optimistic. At 19, I couldn't imagine I'd have as much loss as I do now. But I'm OK. It's my life, and I don't have time for fear.

If someone offered me a pill to wake up tomorrow as a hearing person, I would take that pill and crush it to death and blow it to the wind. I am sure some deaf (especially those who go deaf later in life) would grab this, but not me. I am a proud Deaf Mum who experiences life differently. This has given me many opportunities I would not have if I was hearing. And, the world is a better place if we can all embrace differences and individualities instead of trying to conform to the ‘norm’.

I pulled out of drama, music and other irrelevant subjects so I could dedicate that time to catch up and do well on the core, academic subjects. Because of all this, I never had a social life. I spent lunchtimes in Learning Support, weekends at home studying, than being out with friends, but I suppose I never had any ‘true’ friends anyway as people treated me differently due to my deafness.

Written language takes me twice as long to understand and process it, as I have to comprehend it, translate into simple English and work out if it’s important or not. That’s why when I write, I use simple English, because;

1. Why bother using complicated words when I don’t use/understand them myself?

2. As well as raising Deaf awareness through the hearing community, my target audience is aimed at the deaf community, so using simple English makes my blogs easier for them to understand.

Growing up as a child of Deaf adults may seem very different from growing up in a hearing home. But in reality, the differences are small, and they don’t make it easier or harder. My brother and I grew up in a loving, caring family. We never felt like we missed out on anything. We grew up learning ASL naturally—saw ASL modeled, and we mimicked what we saw. My brother Dean and I both agree that our home life wasn’t difficult; it was just a little different from a hearing home. We both feel that growing up in a Deaf home has given us a gift. Our gift was a visual language in ASL, a beautiful culture, and a community of caring friends.

While growing up as a child of Deaf adults wasn’t hard, it still presented some challenges for our family, some of them small, and others that could have been quite serious.

Part of the challenge is that Deaf people do not perceive the intensity of sounds or know how sounds travel. It wasn’t unusual for Mom to vacuum the floors at 5:00 a.m., or for the television volume to be extremely loud, or for dad to talk very loudly in his “deaf voice” in a public setting.

More seriously, several years ago, my mother was in the hospital with chest pains. It ended up not being major heart problems, but as a precaution, the doctor prescribed nitroglycerin. Instead of having an ASL interpreter convey the instructions, the nurse gave the information verbally. She relied on my mother’s ability to read her lips. I was hundreds of miles away when my mom contacted me, telling me she had taken four nitroglycerin tablets and still had chest pain. I knew she had taken too many pills and sent her to the emergency room, where she was properly assessed. It was disconcerting to me that a nurse thought she could give critical information to a deaf person orally without a qualified Sign Language interpreter to ensure she could convey the right dosage.