Deaf Like Me In the book “Deaf Like Me,” by Thomas S. Spardley and James P Spardley, a father and uncle a go on a journey to share the struggle of teaching their deaf daughter/ niece how to communicate. Thomas and Louise live in Minnesota with their son Bruce. Thomas is a teacher at Carleton College, and Louise is a stay at home mom. Louise, the mother, finds out that while she is pregnant she developed German measles.…
Introduction to American Deaf Culture by Thomas Holcomb begins with a graphic celebrating Deaf culture to set the tone for the whole book. Holcomb discusses the difference between being deaf and the Deaf community, and the difference between community and culture. He uses specific examples to show how Deaf culture adheres to all five hallmarks that make up a culture. In the third chapter, he defines many of the terms and labels used to describe deaf people, including hearing-impaired and hard of hearing. Within this section, a helpful guide of appropriate terms and inappropriate terms is provided so hearing people understand what is acceptable when describing a deaf person.…
In Introduction To American Deaf Culture, Thomas K. Holcomb provides an insightful view of the Deaf culture and paints an inclusive picture of how the Deaf community functions and thrives in the world. In each chapter, proficient evidence is supplied to draw the audience (myself in this experience) in to the topics and make them think more thoughtfully about how the Deaf culture should be viewed. From the start, the audience is brought into this book on a personal level with an introduction from the author. In this intro, the major points of this book are previewed to prepare the audience for what is coming. The second chapter defines culture and gives examples of how the Deaf culture fits in with the others.…
The foundation for Gallaudet first began in 1856 when Amos Kendall donated two acres of land in Washington, D.C. for a school and housing to be built for twelve deaf and six blind students. In 1857, Kendall convinced Congress to incorporate what was then known as the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind. The first superintendent was to be Edward Miner Gallaudet, the son of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet who founded the first school for the Deaf in the United States. In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed the authorization of the institution to grant college degrees. Gallaudet was made president, and he presided over the first commencement in June 1869 when three graduates received diplomas signed by President…
The book our class was given to read is called “Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World” by Leah Hager Cohen. The writing is about what she had seen living in a Deaf school since a child, and what struggles the Deaf community has. She lived in Lexington School for the Deaf, which she always felt at home, comfortable, and knew the lay of the land. She considered Lexington to be her “red-bricked castle, her seven acre kingdom.” This is where she lived with her brother Max, and her mother and father.…
The book “Deaf Hearing Boy” is way more than just a story about a hearing boy. It has a really big and important meaning to it about how deaf people used to be treated, but also how they still are treated. This book is a story about R. H. Miller’s life story and the complications he had to face being one of the four brothers all whom were hearing and his parents being deaf. His parents had a hard life to try and make it through.…
Ashley Locke Professor Marler SLG 201 12 October 2015 Deaf President Now The Deaf President Now movement is one of the few movements that really characterized the deaf community and made the deaf community grow closer and most of all, stronger. In the late 1980’s, Gallaudet University (located in Washington D.C.) was the original site of a protest against the appointment of another hearing president.…
Deaf Again is an autobiography of the life of Mark Drolsbaugh. Mark analyzes and discusses the psychosocial and educational aspects of deafness by using experiences and his family’s encounters throughout his life. He begins with Sherry, Mark’s mother’s experience of his birth to exemplify how the deaf are treated due to the communication gap between the deaf and hearing. He then discusses experiences that impacted his psychosocial, emotional, and educational development from the time he was diagnosed deaf as a child through to his adult years when he fell in love with deaf culture. Mark was born hearing and began losing his hearing in the first grade.…
In the book, The Deaf Community in America: History in the making by Meliva M. Nomeland and Ronald E. Nomeland, discusses the drastic changes in past years for the deaf community. Chapter three talks about Edward Miner Gallaudet and Alexander Graham Bell. They are two extremely different men born ten years apart and expressing very opposite views on the deaf community. Gallaudet and Bell were actively involved in the Washington area as well as sharing the same friend group. When the topic of deaf education would come up, the two men would have heated arguments about how it should be taught.…
Through Deaf Eyes was an extremely enlightening documentary about deaf life in America. The film begins with the question, what do you think it would be like being a deaf person? They explain that, whenever you ask a hearing person this question they respond with a lot of “can’ts”. I can’t, I can’t I can’t. Deaf people, however, do not think like that, they think of all the things they can do.…
The Americans with Disabilities Act The Americans with Disabilities Act was established in 1998, at the recommendation from the National Council of Disability. The Americans with Disabilities Act covers those with physical and mental disabilities. The Americans with disabilities Act is also known as ADA. The Act protects people with disabilities from discrimination in the workforce, and the workforce must provide reasonable accommodations for those with disabilities.…
It is often said that communication is key to cooperation and in order to be able to communicate properly one must use their language accordingly to voice their thoughts and ideas to others. In the short, science fiction story "Speech Sounds" by Octavia Butler, speech is absent in a society causing disorder amongst the citizens. The short story makes many connections with society and people today in terms of lack of responsiveness and feelings of indifference to others. But while the story directs a loss of speech to a loss of empathy this isn’t necessarily correct. “Speech Sounds” is set in a dystopia and starts off with Rye taking a bus to Pasadena.…
Community, acceptance, pride and early linguistic intervention are the key issues that I found during my reading of Deaf Again. Our author’s experiences at Gallaudet University and the PSD finally gave him the feeling of existing and community. For the first time, he craved challenges and joined organizations because he did not feel left out. Drolsbaugh has now learned how to live life and was a big advocate of deaf children having every opportunity to interact with others like themselves. Without this exposure, Mark Drolsbaugh felt emotionally and cognitively much younger than his chronological age as compared to his hearing counterparts.…
Question 1: There are many myths and misconceptions that hearing individuals believe about Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Deaf-Blind individuals. Due to these myths and negative misconceptions the Deaf population is impacted negatively, therefore hearing individual’s ignorance can have significant impacts on the Deaf. The three myths and misconceptions are Sign Language is bad for Deaf people, all Deaf people can read lips, and all Deaf individuals benefit from hearing devices. A myth and misconception that is believed by many hearing individuals which can negatively impact a Deaf individual is that “Sign Language is bad for Deaf people”. Hearing individuals believe that learning Sign Language can confuse Deaf children as well as make them unable to communicate with hearing individuals.…
Dyslexia is an inherited condition that makes it extremely difficult to read, write, and spell in your native language, despite having an at least average intelligence. Dyslexia is very common, but has only been talked about in recent years. It was 1878 when German neurologist, Adolph Kussmaul, first used the phrase “word blindness” describing what we know as dyslexia today. The word dyslexia was first used by Rudolf Berlin of Stuttgart, Germany, in 1887 to describe the inability to read. In 1905 W.E. Burner published the first report of childhood reading difficulties in the U.S..…