The Silence of Sound

hi everyone

i am zandy wong i am currently a

freshman at hopkins and i’m really

excited to give my talk today

it’s titled the science sound so let’s

get started

so if anyone asks me if there’s any good

part to having hearing loss

boss i jokingly tell them well i share a

room

with my twin sister hannah and sometimes

she

snores a lot so whenever i need a good

night’s sleep i can just

smush my right side into the pillow and

it works instant ear plugs every time

because my left side doesn’t have much

hearing

and i’m always guaranteed a good night’s

sleep but besides that though

growing up with hearing loss was an

isolating

experience i have severe hearing loss my

left ear

from over window atresia which basically

means

that one of the bones in the middle ear

the oval window

is deformed so the sound never quite

makes it to the cochlea and up to the

auditory nerve to be processed

as sound about 90 of the hearing

in my left ear is gone and for a long

time

i couldn’t hear the birds rustling

or the wind rustling behind my ears

and i wear a cochlear baja implant bone

anchor hearing aid

plant to help remedy some of this

hearing

now according to the national institute

of communication

disorders and deafness about two to

three

out of every 1 000 children in the us

are

born with hearing loss every year

and that’s statistically actually a

pretty high number

but growing up in a large high school it

was

often lonely i remember being one

of five students with hearing loss out

of a school of maybe 3 000 students

and i never actually met any of the all

the kids that had hearing loss because

disability and hearing loss wasn’t

really something we talked about

at hayfield so i didn’t want to be

known as the girls with disabilities i

didn’t want to be

the outlier so i defined myself in

other ways i learned to play the piano i

played tennis

i did a lot of community service and

everything

was going just fine i just chummed along

went along my day

and i didn’t really discuss disability i

kind of

shied away from it and people asked me

about it and it was going just fine

until i heard

the silent sound which was something i

hadn’t really heard

since getting pulled out for speech

therapy classes

in elementary school so what is the

silence of sound it’s an oxymoron sense

but i’m sure

many of you have heard the science of

sound

there appears laughs coiling in the air

like blaster in your confidence

heightening the tension of a rope that’s

about to

snap without uttering a word a whole

group

ostracize you for what makes you

different

now the last time i had heard the sound

of sound in high school was in a place

that i had found

comfort even community in my national

honor society

this one time 30 nhs students laughed at

me because i mistakenly replied to a

conversation

about lunches with an inquiry about cell

phones

i have trouble hearing in very noisy

places because there’s so much noise

going on

and instead of asking for clarification

they laughed at me and encouraged their

friends to laugh

along without ever telling me what was

so funny

and afterwards they told me we’re not

laughing at you

we’re laughing at what you said and

although they spoke the truth they

aren’t disabled they don’t

understand what it’s like being the odd

one out after you’ve tried every day

to conform to the norm and what also

make the sound of

silence sound so potent that time is

that it came from people i

trusted and admired you expect maybe

six-year-olds to not really understand

the meaning

of what can hurt but you can you

definitely expect 16 year olds to have a

more wider understanding

of their actions and how their words can

hurt someone

we often talk about insults and words

as bullying and harassment those you can

easily define

you can perceive the meaning and intent

behind them

and determine that they’re hurtful but

with laughter

that is different laughter has so many

definitions

laughter can be reaction

reacting to joyous news laughter can be

reacting to what is so funny laughter

can be

the riding what is ugly in this world

what is not perfect in nature

and ripping it to pieces like scraps

of bread and disability has many

definitions as well

both good and bad and kind of like

laughter as well

and after hearing the sound clear last

time

i had to come to a reckoning to

what i define as disability and how that

plays into my identity

and my identity in the greater context

of my school and my community and wider

society

and i had to come to reckoning to find

closure because i knew that just

not talking about it anymore wasn’t

going to do me

any good and so i started thinking

and thinking and think about sharing my

story and i’ll share later why

i decided to share my story but one

thing about

how i was going to share my story and

what is the context of my disability

i came to new conclusions that i should

clear up first

one my experience is certainly not

unique

as a hard apparent person two

i do not know asl nor am i deaf

i cannot represent the deaf community i

certainly

have had my struggles with hearing loss

but i do not know what it’s like

to have my whole world go silent and

three

my experience is not representative of

the whole community of people with

disabilities

i’m lucky enough that my family is able

to afford the cochlear baja implant

and the many doctors appointments

associated with it

and my experience certainly has not been

the most traumatic or even the worst

it certainly has been an experience so

then why me and why now

why would i even be standing on a stage

telling you my story and giving a ted

talk about it

if i acknowledge that it’s not the most

traumatic or even the most unique and

people

ask me dandy aren’t you just being too

sensitive

so what a bunch of kids laughed at you

just move on and go on with your life

and i have not really moved on and have

found closure with it

but somewhere out there someone

maybe not you maybe not me right now is

getting laughed at

because of things that they can’t

control because of they are different

from the norm

and i don’t want to see anyone hurt

because they

can’t be themselves and so that’s really

why i’m here to share my story

if we don’t acknowledge these little

things the signs of sound the things

that are hard to define

then nobody will know and nothing will

change

the signs of sound will continue to

reverberate

so i started thinking and started

sharing my story regionally

and that’s a pretty cool podcast and

it’s been a really refreshing experience

to see

everyone’s responses and just growth of

awareness of what makes us

unique and i eventually did find closure

and i eventually did try to talk to the

people that had laughed at me

and i’m not really sure if it worked and

changing their mind that’s okay i

eventually somehow forgave them

and in sharing my story i learned a lot

about myself

and a lot in finding closure and

confidence in myself

and also learned some ways about how to

reframe disability which is

kind of what i want to introduce you

guys to today so let’s get on to that

part

so first off there are negative

assumptions

about disability the most common example

that you see

of someone with hearing loss is probably

your elderly grandma or your elderly mom

calling you on the phone and she’s like

what can you repeat that again

like that and it’s really loud and it’s

kind of annoying sometimes and you just

laugh it off

um it is the stereotype that

people that are older are probably the

only ones that have hearing loss but

there are

many many people out there with hearing

loss so

when you’re doing that please don’t just

laugh it off please take the time

to listen because everyone deserves a

chance to be heard

and everyone deserves a chance to get

their words out there

and then a negative another negative

assumption about disability

is sometimes people see it as a

compliment

when people tell me oh zandy you’ve

accomplished so much you over

came your disability when i reframe it i

like to say

i overcame this circumstances my

disability

i didn’t overcome my disability i still

have hearing loss disability is

something

that sticks with you for life whether

you’re born with it

or whether you acquire it later down the

road

it’s not something that i can just rip

off like a worn out band-aid

and so and so there

i may never have my hearing restored and

i there may never be the technologies

available

in my life to time to restore my hearing

and that’s okay

instead i overcame the circumstances of

what people boxed me into

and what are these boxes that people put

you into these are

negative stereotypes that perpetuate in

the wider community

in the able community and they are less

prevalent than they are

than than what was in the past but they

are still

relevant for now they are spread by the

people

who don’t like when something’s

different they are spread by the people

who choose to not listen even though

they fully can

they are spread by the people who see us

as just our condition

and not as people and it’s often hard to

hear that

um most people are very accepting when i

tell them about my hearing loss but some

people they kind of

shrink away and it’s definitely an

uncomfortable feeling but by discounting

out people

because they have a disability negates

their effort they work to live

in a able world

they work just as hard if not harder

than probably you guys do to

live normally in an able world

sure i may not have heard everything you

said

i may make mistakes in communicating

with you but it’s not like i didn’t make

an

effort to try and then

also something else i want to reframe

about disability

is that people with disabilities aren’t

deprived of life we’ve simply

adjusted we may not be able to enjoy or

do everything that an able person would

like for example i don’t really like

rock concerts but i substitute that with

different

music and that’s okay we just make the

best with what we have

and then the last thing i want to

reframe about

disabilities is that people are not

defined by

disabilities they are defined by the

actions that they take

in context of their disabilities

disabilities are always going to be a

big part of my life

uh whether that’s including my

influencing my daily actions or what i

study at school

it certainly will linger for as long as

i live

but i make the best of what i can i

still continue to teach

kids in math even though sometimes i

can’t hear them by working

by putting in workarounds and i just try

to see the best in the situation keep

going with it

and then i’ve been lucky enough to be a

student

at hopkins and have done some amazing

research

with the school of medicine and i’ve

been looking at it

back in the context of my disability

sometimes

i do wonder did they choose me just

because

i have hearing loss do they choose me

just to have

that diversity factor and sometimes it

haunts me

it makes me really wonder if i deserve

this spot

and after telling my story and talking

to more people with hearing loss with

disabilities

i realized that this wasn’t the case

they chose me whoever chose me they

chose me because

of the actions i took in context of

dealing with my hearing loss and the

circumstances that people boxed me into

they chose me not despite my disability

but in context my disability

my hearing loss does not define me

i would never wish for someone to have

hearing loss

i would never wish for someone not to be

able to hear

the birds chirping or to win wrestling

behind

their ears i would never wish for

someone not

to have the words to communicate their

thoughts and actions

but i wouldn’t change my experience

growing up as a teen with hearing loss

because of my hearing loss i’m more

caring and aware

i take the time to listen because i know

what it’s like

not to be heard i never take anything

for granted

and have accomplished a lot because i

know it takes a lot to tell the world

that

you are different without succumbing to

its expectations

i’ve been lucky enough to continue

sharing my story regionally and on some

pretty cool

podcasts and it’s really nice to hear

people’s feedback

and just increase awareness i hope it

helps

and at hopkins i’ve been lucky enough to

find a community

of people with hearing loss whether that

be faculty or students just like me

and it’s comforting to know that i am

not alone

and i still want to be known as

the girl who improv’s piano music binge

watches brooklyn nine-nine

and is always up for eating cream puffs

but

i don’t shy away from the topic of

disability like i used to

before if people ask me i tell them

about my disability

instead of deflecting i tell them the

truth all of it

and i don’t shy away from telling people

why their fallacies

and assumptions are hurtful

my experience is certainly not the most

unique

nor is it the first one or last one to

come

but it’s relevant for understanding why

what’s left unspoken

the science of sound somehow

reverberates the loudest

i continue to share my story to

encourage acceptance of

what makes us unique nothing more

nothing less in the spirit of this tedx

events

theme of growth by finding closure with

my

identity as a team with disabilities and

learning to reframe

my definitions and perceptions of

disability i have grown

much more aware aware of the

consequences

our words and actions can have on

individuals

aware that what’s left unspoken

somehow hurts still aware that learning

to

reframe and redefine what we believe is

true

can encourage personal growth and aware

that being heard and being recognized

can temporarily silence the silence of

sound

finally allowing the birds to be heard

at last

thank you