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I appreciate taking the time and effort to put this article out there, and hope that it will help us hearing folk to improve our dealings with deaf people, but

I appreciate taking the time and effort to put this article out there, and hope that it will help us hearing folk to improve our dealings with deaf people, but I can't help but have the following thoughts: 1) can the poster not lip-read? I realize it's not 100% accurate and you only get the portion of the conversation from the person you're looking at at the moment but from the description it sounds as if the poster isn't getting ANY of the conversations. 2) Didn't take the offered speech therapy funding?!?! WTF. I wouldn't even remotely suggest that every Deaf person needs to learn to speak BUT if you are feeling so left out of conversations with hearing people, and it's effecting you so significantly emotionally not taking advantage of this just sounds crazy. I recognize that us hearing folk can never fully understand what it's like to be deaf, but at the same time this post really makes it sound like the poster hasn't been taking any steps to counter the situation that's causing them emotional distress. Getting your employer to pay for someone to come in and translate for you is NOT the solution. Sure it may help, but unless they're going to follow you around all day it only addresses a teeny portion of the problem. Also, regarding the avoidance of the deaf community: I can understand not identifying with Deaf culture, but getting together with other deaf people doesn't have to be about that. I live in Cambridge, MA (very white and very english speaking). On my street there's a portugese club where people get together simple to communicate in a familiar language. Down the road there's a portugese sports club where they get together to watch soccer. A couple miles away there's a Korean church. These people are primarily getting together because of language. This sounds like exactly the same problem to me. The poster has trouble dealing with oral language, feels isolated as a result, and then actively avoids getting together with people who do speek their language, thus increasing the sense of isolation. Yes, there's much we hearing folk could do to help improve the poster's situation, but it seems as if the poster isn't doing much to improve their situation either.

pbhjpbhj 14y ago
>can the poster not lip-read? // They mention consonantly difficulties - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cued_speech http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cued_speech and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manually_Coded_Language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manually_Coded_Language seem quite good; from Cued Speech (ibid): "It is a phonemic-based system which makes traditionally spoken languages accessible by using a small number of handshapes (representing consonants) in different locations near the mouth (representing vowels), as a supplement to lipreading." Note also that being a proponent of cued speech apparently sets the author against a large part of the Deaf community who it seems take that as an affront to their culture and language.
sarenji 14y ago
1) Lip-reading is hard. In a group conversation, how many of the people speaking are actually looking at you? How do you follow a back-and-forth? What if someone interrupts? Who is it? People vary in lip-reading skill. I'm on the lower end. If someone says "Lipreading sucks," and you get 50% of it, you get either "Lipread" or "ing sucks," neither of which tell you anything. In longer sentences, you can sometimes guess, but I seem to be terrible at it? 2) My speech has never been a problem as my work understands me quite well. I perceived I had bigger things to deal with, like working on understanding what people say and getting up-to-date on stuff happening at work. 3) I have many Deaf friends back in college who I try to hang out with. I'm still learning sign language from them, and they've all been very helpful and supportive. Until I become proficient enough to actually participate in signed conversations, though, I still don't feel as if I belong. By the way, me being more proactive is something I'm also working hard on :-) It's all a process.
roberthahn 14y ago
I'm profoundly deaf, but my parents worked to integrate me into hearing culture. Which means lip reading. Lip reading is not a panacea. To illustrate, try mouthing the words "I want to vacuum" -- and be careful who you mouth them to!

pbhjpbhj 14y ago

>can the poster not lip-read? // They mention consonantly difficulties - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cued_speech http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cued_speech and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manually_Coded_Language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manually_Coded_Language seem quite good; from Cued Speech (ibid): "It is a phonemic-based system which makes traditionally spoken languages accessible by using a small number of handshapes (representing consonants) in different locations near the mouth (representing vowels), as a supplement to lipreading." Note also that being a proponent of cued speech apparently sets the author against a large part of the Deaf community who it seems take that as an affront to their culture and language.

sarenji 14y ago

1) Lip-reading is hard. In a group conversation, how many of the people speaking are actually looking at you? How do you follow a back-and-forth? What if someone interrupts? Who is it? People vary in lip-reading skill. I'm on the lower end. If someone says "Lipreading sucks," and you get 50% of it, you get either "Lipread" or "ing sucks," neither of which tell you anything. In longer sentences, you can sometimes guess, but I seem to be terrible at it? 2) My speech has never been a problem as my work understands me quite well. I perceived I had bigger things to deal with, like working on understanding what people say and getting up-to-date on stuff happening at work. 3) I have many Deaf friends back in college who I try to hang out with. I'm still learning sign language from them, and they've all been very helpful and supportive. Until I become proficient enough to actually participate in signed conversations, though, I still don't feel as if I belong. By the way, me being more proactive is something I'm also working hard on :-) It's all a process.

roberthahn 14y ago

I'm profoundly deaf, but my parents worked to integrate me into hearing culture. Which means lip reading. Lip reading is not a panacea. To illustrate, try mouthing the words "I want to vacuum" -- and be careful who you mouth them to!