Deaf is Worlds Gain

hello

everyone i’m here to

talk about how deaf people

are the world’s game and i’d like to

first clarify

what i mean when i use the word deaf as

an

identifier right we live in a majority

hearing world and identify as deaf

people

we are a community that has

people with many identities

so a person might be deaf but they have

other intersections

of a variety of identities and for

today’s talk

i’m going to talk about the uh larger

identity of being deaf

and how that benefits our world

now we as deaf people we have been on

this earth over

10 000 years there are

over 400 types of deaf genes

this is not new and there i believe

is a reason we’re here

so if you see the picture that i’m

showing

take a look and see if you can

identify who is deaf and who can hear

i will talk about that later toward the

end of my talk

so i’d like to start talking about how

we

benefit the world if we think about film

and media

today we are addicted to

film and media social media etc

and back in 1924 actually a

jewish deaf gentleman who lived in

germany

actually invented what we know today as

the television

his name was zeitlin

that was his last name and he was the

young age

of 17. if you can imagine that a 17 year

old

invented what we know today as

television

and i think there’s a nice twist one of

our major brands is

zenith right which was invented by

zeitlin so when we think about films

also what we know today as movies

started

at as a very different medium

it was silent films and deaf people

back in that time realized very quickly

the value that that medium provided for

disseminating information

a gentleman we know in our deaf

community by the name of george

vettitz is the father of

using film to get information out to the

community

from there those of you who could hear

people in in that time

started to develop ways to add sound and

now

film is everywhere we also

now have video logs that started

as blogs right when the internet first

started

a lot of people used that as a medium to

get information out

and deaf people very quickly wanted to

use

video as ways to get information out so

deaf people first launched the idea of

video logs and we now

see it everywhere we have deaf people to

thank for that as well

so taking a look at that photo

of a football huddle

we see football many times in our lives

right

when we watch the kansas city chiefs

the football huddle is something that’s

a very

basic part of football well it was

invented in washington dc

at gallaudet university which is the

world’s only

liberal arts deaf university for deaf

hard of hearing children who have deaf

adults

and hearing children

as well so people who can hear

who have deaf adult deaf parents etc

are able to attend this university and

so at this university

when they were playing football

when there was the realization that the

other team

could see what they were talking about

and

in in discussing their plays they came

up with the concept of a

huddle so that took fire

thank you to paul hubbard the first

football player

who invented the idea of huddling

together

so this demonstrates ways that deaf

people

navigate the world we in large part have

a visual orientation

so a number of ways that spaces are

designed in our uh photo

phono-centric or audio-centric

environment we have adjusted based on

our own world experience

for example

one way that that we are able to

navigate

the world when we are driving

we are able to communicate with other

drivers on the road

through our windows uh being that

as long as we both understand sign

language so when i see another deaf

driver

we can communicate with with each other

so having those

clear windows as ways to communicate

is key for us when we are

in hallways or in other

areas of buildings oftentimes those

spaces are narrow which make it

difficult for us to communicate

and are not only barriers for us as deaf

people but

mothers or parents having uh deaf vape

or babies in strollers

or people who are in larger groups

trying to discuss or people who might be

in wheelchairs

or moving furniture with carts or

dollies

there are a number of examples where

that could create a barrier

so we often will then have larger

hallways

in deaf spaces we can look at the

concept of universal design

and looking at elevators for example

that

the concept of how elevators apply to

universal design and benefit

everyone even though they weren’t

originally

invented for that purpose and we can

look at the ways that closed captioning

or captioning services

benefit all of us if we take a universal

design

approach because not only deaf people

will benefit

but other people who are losing their

hearing or who

who are in noisy environment such as

bars or

other places where there is competing

noise

so text-based communication can be for

everyone

not just for uh deaf people

um other kinds of things that we see as

accommodation

or like the elevator are not only for

people who are unable to

go upstairs but for everyone

another area that i think deaf space

benefits to the world is

the way that we have our interior

building so oftentimes if you might

remember your elementary school

had glossy paint and

fluorescent lighting that hurt your eyes

and caused tremendous eye fatigue

oftentimes in deaf spaces we use a flat

paint or a matte finish and those

fluorescent lights

we do not use we use other more

gentle forms of life of lighting so

we can focus on learning we see that

more and more schools are also making

those adjustments

so that’s another example of universal

design

we can look at public announcements

right that are

typically given over some sort of a

system where everybody hears those

public announcements

but when people are in noisy

environments they may not be able to

hear those announcements on those pa

systems so using text-based

communications to provide public

announcements would benefit

everyone not only the deaf community

people who can hear would also

appreciate that information

it will allow for clarity of the

information and repetition of the

information so that’s another way that

the deaf way of being can contribute to

our world

there are other examples of how i think

we are ahead

of the game uh more and more as people

are

introspective about their identities

we specifically look at the gender

continuum and

folks who are beginning to identify as

non-binary

as opposed to only uh being male or

female

our language particularly english

language

is very limiting in pronoun use right

and we’re having to look at

ways to use our language and different

pronoun usage

american sign language is already ahead

of that game we do not have gender-based

pronouns

we use indexing as a way to

demonstrate pronouns and that would

include the entire

continuum of gender identity so

there is no adjustment we have to make

when it comes to

referring to people and how they

identify

so there’s another gain for our world

so the the recent slide that i showed

you might have noticed

there was a deaf baby and a hearing baby

and it’s titled the greatest irony

because

it demonstrates the fact that

while sign language was invented by deaf

people

used by deaf people and by the way there

are 300

plus signed languages in the world

that have been in the world and used

by deaf people and by

people who can hear who use the language

to relate with and interact with deaf

people

absolutely hearing people use this sign

language

however the irony is that

since the industrial revolution probably

around the 1800s

there has been more and more of a shift

as seeing sign language as a

deficit or a problem that exists

as a temporary fix

or band-aid for example

in that illustration that i just showed

you it showed a hearing baby with the

sign of

what we know as i love you right with a

smile on its face

because science has shown right in

infants their vocal cords and

they don’t nec they don’t yet have the

ability to produce

sounds and this can cause temper

tantrums

often and a great deal of frustration

because they’re unable to express

themselves

so baby sign has been

an approach to that in teaching infants

sign

however and those babies don’t

experience the terrible twos right

because they are having sign

deaf babies who are exposed to sign

language

also have that experience of being able

to express themselves

sign has also been given as a supplement

or a resource to children who are

have disabilities of sorts and unable to

express themselves

and the irony is that deaf babies who

are born

often to hearing parents and the hearing

parents

are surprised by this they’re not

informed about what

what to do are often advised by the

medical professionals that they should

not

sign that they should not teach their

infant sign language that they should

teach them to speak

and that comes from the idea of seeing

sign language and being deaf

as a deficit so that’s an irony that

hearing babies are offered this as a

resource while deaf babies are deprived

of their birthright

we can also look at colleges and

universities

that teach american sign language

and colleges and universities that teach

languages

as such as french spanish or other

modern languages

tend to have departments such as foreign

language department

or language studies or something that

houses

their languages well american sign

language

is not housed in those departments it’s

typically

housed in special education speech and

language hearing sciences

or communication disorders as opposed to

being housed in

foreign language departments again that

demonstrates

a deficit view of sign language which is

the opposite

of how we see our rich language

we also can take a look at ways that

deaf children

are educated in our society

there are mainstream environments that

have

deaf programs as well as deaf

residential schools

and many of those do not have language

asl instruction or curriculum

as part of their educational environment

while their hearing peers

have the luxury of getting language

classes in their own native

language as well as taking a foreign

language such as american sign language

deaf children themselves that this is

their native language do not have that

luxury of having a curriculum

for their own language to strengthen

their own language so there’s yet

another irony

so that recent slide i really

say is the antithesis to my thesis

right it shows this deficit model

that of how we are looked at as a deaf

people

right this deaf elephant being in the

room

that uh tries to force us to be

hearing tries to force us to change who

we are

there is about 75

of children this is a rough estimate

that have

experienced language deprivation or

severe

language delay so they are not

kindergarten ready

when they arrive to that age their

cognitive

abilities their social emotional

abilities

and their self-identity is truly

lacking and suffering

this creates a larger gap every year

for deaf children as they progress in

their

school and education because they are

denied the right

to sign typically it’s when parents

notice these gaps and these delays

by the time the child is seven or eight

that they

start to expose them to sign language

and it is too late by that time

there’s a small percentage of children

who are still able to succeed

but many of them don’t because they have

missed that language window

so this brings me back to my first

photograph

right with the two with the people

showing it’s the female

with her hand showing her ring

who’s deaf and the male with curly hair

and glasses who is hearing

and this just is a perfect example of

showing how

human biodiversity can exist

deaf people are a cultural linguistic

minority

we are people too thank you all for your

attention this evening