Willothewisp

Posts Tagged ‘Deaf’

I went into town during the week to deal with paperwork regarding our oldest two children and their respective disabilities. I will not tell you which particular arm of government department  I was dealing with because I have lodged a formal complaint, so until that is dealt with I think giving specifics would not be fair.

With Hilke and Nicholas off to school, Mariaske in playgroup in Looierstraat I put Joost into his pram, harnessed up Sissi and trekked into town. Upon finding the building I wanted I went up to the front desk in the lobby. The young man there was very helpful, recognising immediately from Sissi’s uniformed presence that I was deaf and partly sighted. Instead of just directing me to correct part of the building he made a phone call, got a large print floor plan out and marked on it where I would need to go and also very thoughtfully marked out the baby facilities and the lady’s wc and also where we could go for refreshments and gave me the map. By this time a colleague had arrived and she took over his position so that he could escort us to where we had to go. He always took care to speak to my face, he controlled his hands using them to make only meaningful gestures, he was at no time condescending or belittling, in short he was a perfect model of help and assistance to a person with impaired senses.

After a going through many corridors and up an couple of floors we arrived at the right department. My escort explained my needs to the girl at the recption desk before departing with my grateful and sincere thanks. The young lady directed me to take a seat in the waiting area, along with about a dozen people. She informed me where the baby facilities were and the wc and asked me if my guide dog need anything. She was not as careful as the young man had been in talking to my face but her heart was in the right place and she was considerate.

So far so good. After almost an hour the number on the large TV screen in the waiting area finally matched my little ticket and directed me to room four so rounding up Sissi and securing Joost off I went.

Now I should explain that despite being lesbian, despite having a few disabilities, even despite being a woman, that I am not into all this politically correct silliness. I am deaf so call me deaf, not “hearing impaired” for goodness sake ! As long as people are not out rightly insulting I really do not mind how I am described. There is nothing more likely to get me annoyed than having to watch someone tying themselves into knots trying to work out how they should be speaking to this deaf, partly sighted lesbian mother of children with disabilities of their own. Just have a little thought, like the young man above because that is wonderful, don’t play the game of PC linguistics invented by middle class sociology degree graduates with no real role in life.

So I sit us down in the interview room and just as I am settling down a woman comes in. I say a woman but in fact it could have been anything underneath all that idiotic black clothing. From head to floor it was covered in shapeless black islamic dress, all that was visible was a little slit with two eyes showing. My heart sank.

I can of course see the funny side, lips, face and entire body hidden behind a black mask interviewing a lip reader, pretty comical really, but when you are dealing with your children’s welfare I prefer to leave the comdey out. I asked her to remove her head covering, explaining that I was deaf and needed to see her face and read her lips. I do not know if she said anything, I imagine she did, but the negative shake of her head provided her answer. Holding onto my irritation I repeated myself, and again there was a nod of her head and this time she waved a little book at me. I looked at the book and sure enough it was a copy of the quran, she was waving it like it was some sort of get out of jail free card from Monopoly. Rather than get annoyed any further I just asked her to get her supervisor in here.

After a few minutes another woman comes in, clearly not a muslim this time. I told her that I was deaf and had to lip read and had therefore asked the lady to remove her head covering and that she had refused thus rendering her useless to me and unable to do her job effectively. The supervisor looked uncomfortable and told me that she could not ask her colleague to remove any of her attire because it was part of her religious belief. I asked her to show me the part in the quran that specified where it said that she had to be covered head to toe, thus cutting her off from the outside world and normal interaction with human beings. I pointed out that her colleague kept a copy of the quran under the folds of her clothing as she had been waving it in my face a few minutes earlier, now she looked very, very uncomfortable, and so she should. She told me that she had to respect the beliefs  of her colleague, clearly thinking that would in some way shield her from any further comment from me. She was wrong, very wrong, it was an approach that was not going to fly with me.

I got out the map the nice young man had given me earlier along with a broacher about service offered by this government department. While waiting for an hour to be seen I had looked through it, including the part that proudly stated that their charter required them to  ”strive to meet the needs of their clients regardless of age, ability, gender or race”.  Giving a deaf lip reader an interviewer who insisted on hiding like some coward behind layers of cloth was not going to help them meet the noble goals of their charter. Her solution was to ask me to go back to the waiting area for a different member of staff to be available. I refused, pointing out I had already been waiting over an hour and that I was not prepared to be penalised just because of the selfish actions of one of her staff. I wanted to have my interview and I could be having it if she were doing her job properly and demanding that her idiot colleague remove her head gear and DO HER BLOODY JOB. Instead I was now faced with two government employees who were refusing to do their jobs, one because she had chosen to imprison herself behind a mask and hide behind a religion that really has no place in European society and the other who was too much of a coward to stand up to an irrational religion.

The supervisor than said that she could call security to escort me from the building. I agreed that she certainly could do that, except for two points; 1. I had not done anything wrong, but she and her colleague had.

2. Throwing a deaf, partly sighted mother with baby and guide dog out by force for merely asking that she be able to lip read her interviewer was not going to look good on the local TV news that evening, and it would make my lawyer very happy as she liked nothing more than suing for a civil rights breach.

It was the tipping point, that moment when she could do something sensible or do something incredibly stupid. She chose sensible, in other words she interviewed me herself and sent her colleague away. Finally I could get down to business and go through the paperwork. I could read her face and lips as she took care to speak at a normal pace to my face and so in just twenty minutes we had completed all that was required. I thanked her for the assistance that she had given, and added that I would be making a formal complaint about the incident as soon as the rage I was currently experiencing subsided.

In the end my letter consisted of two parts, one praising the consideration of the two receptionists and one damning the stupidity of the muslim woman and levelling a charge of cowardice at her supervisor. I also left a card and a gift of handmade chocolates to the front desk because good actions need to be encouraged. I am now awaiting the response to my complaint, I will let you know how it goes.

Footnote: Oddly enough this little incident did not worsen my general level of anxiety. It had been a big mental effort to overcome my worries over being out and on unfamiliar ground but the dispute of the idiocy of the muslim woman did not worsen matters as I feared it might. In fact I think my anger may have been something of a counterweight to the anxiety, and so I wonder if perhaps I have found a tool I can use to regain some of my lost ground.

Author: Judith

Sitting around here in Amsterdam, not allowed to do anything much during convelesence I decided to wade through the mountain of mail I have. I got as far January’s mail, shamefully far behind I know, when I came to this mail from a young man:

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“In what language do the profoundly deaf think? I think in Dutch, because that’s what I speak. But since deaf people cannot hear, surely they cannot learn how to speak a language but nevertheless, they must think in some language. Would they think in Dutch if they use sign language and read Dutch? How would they do that if they’ve never heard the words they are signing or reading pronounced? Do they just see words in their head, instead of hearing themselves, how on earth do they do it?  The more I think about this the more confused I become. I gather you became deaf well after you learnt language is that right? How about your deaf child does he use the same language as yourself? What about those who are blind in addition to deaf ?”

Henk van S, Naningweg, Ooststellingwerf.

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You are not far off being right in your thinking. Let me explain, but first a little context.

As my deafness was “acquired” in my twenties I had already developed my language (Dutch, English, German). Our son Nicholas was born profoundly deaf, and worse, his biological mother was not in a position to help him develop properly. Then to compound matters he was left in near isolation for the first 20 months of his life, it was nearly disastrous for him. As you can see though we are both deaf we come from almost polar opposites of experience and shows you cannot  just consider deafness to be a single term.  Based on this background I now frame my words.

If you are wondering what it is like to be a mother teaching her deaf child then this video may help you;

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Congenital/Hereditary Deafness

Can we think without language? The short answer is no, at least not at the level of cognition that we humans are accustomed to and this is why Congenital/Hereditary deafness can have far serious consequences. In fact it can be more serious than blindness in the development of the intellect. Being blind is undoubtedly hard, I know this from personal experience,  but even those sightless from birth acquire language by ear without difficulty as they grow up. A congenitally deaf child is not so fortunate because unless a parent, medical worker, teacher etc realizes very early on that she/ he’s not developing language because she/he cannot hear then their grasp of communication in any form may never progress beyond a rudimentary level, this is why one of the very first checks a midwife makes after the birth of a baby is on their hearing.

About one child per twelve hundred in Western Europe is born with no ability to hear whatsoever. The vital age range for language acquisition is 21 to 36 months. During this period children pick up the basics of language with ease (remarkable ease as it happens), and in so doing establish essential cognitive infrastructure in their brains. Beyond this age it is far more difficult. If the congenitally deaf aren’t diagnosed before they start school, they will face severe learning problems for the rest of their lives, though this does not mean that their intelligence is not normal.

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Acquired Deafness

If ,like me, you do not become totally deaf until after you’ve acquired language, your problems are some what more manageable. You think in whatever spoken language you’ve learned, Dutch in my case. If you are still in education when you loose your hearing then given some commonsense accommodation during school/university, you will progress intellectually on a par with any hearing person. In fact in some small ways it can be an advantage, though they are usually far outweighed by the inherent disadvantages. I would always urge anyone with acquired deafness to learn to sign, it is so valuable to link you to others and believe me you will need to take very opportunity you can grasp to link you to the human race that you can seize. One thing I have noticed in the last few years is that I am thinking less in Dutch and much more in Sign.

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Sign Language

The profoundly, prelingually deaf can and do acquire language, sign language. Every country has it’s own sign language. Those not familiar with Sign may suppose that it’s an invented form of communication like Esperanto but it is not. It is an independent and natural language with a heritage as long as many spoken languages, evolved by ordinary people and transmitted culturally from one generation to the next. To the surprise of many it is more similar to Chinese than any other language because a single inflected gesture can convey an entire word or phrase.  Sign can be acquired effortlessly in early childhood, children are wonderfully natural language sponges. My children sign and have even developed their own dialect between them, one which Nina and I often cannot understand, but then I suspect that is the point of it - the little monkeys! Sign is wonderfully expressive and versatile, it  equips users with the ability to manipulate concepts, symbols, describe abstract ideas, actively acquire and process knowledge. I have never met a hearing person who after learning sign has not been impressed with just how rich signing is as a language of artistic expression. Though I can speak and lip read a lot of conversation between Nina and I is in sign, especially when we are exploring complex subjects. It is also wonderful as a language of love.

Unfortunately many hearing people who claim themselves to be  authorities on the subject of deafness have long insisted that the best way to educate the deaf is to teach them spoken language ! As if the astounding arrogance of them were not enough, in the past they often went as far as to  as to employ physically abusive methods to actively suppress signing which was always utterly disastrous for their victims.

The answer to your question “In what language do the profoundly deaf think?” is that they think in Sign. This does of course assume they were fortunate enough to have learned it in infancy/childhood.

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Dutch Sign Language

“Nederlandse Gebarentaal” or “NGT” is the Sign Language used by Congenital/Hereditary deaf people in the Netherlands. Strange as it may seem it is not officially recognised. People like myself who become deaf suddenly or gradually (so-called deaf postlingual) generally use “Nederlands met Gebaren” or “NmG”. Since1995, more and more schools for the deaf in The Netherlands teach “Nederlands met Gebaren”, in English it is ” Dutch with Gestures” and it uses the same grammar as Dutch spoken language. but is supported by Dutch spoken gestures. This support with gestures makes it much more visual. NMG is basically the Dutch lexicon with elements of the grammar of Dutch Sign Language used for visual support. NMG largely follows the grammar of the Dutch language, including all proverbs, sayings and expressions. In contrast Dutch sign language, creates it’s own grammar which is necessary for those who have never heard their own language, this is why the two languages exist happily together.

As our son was deaf from birth he was taught NGT while I originally learnt NMG. I have adapted to NGT though I can switch between the two, while Nina and Hilke use NGT almost exclusively. My son is a very creative child in painting, drawing, crafts, model making, I often just watch him at the big table as I work in the kitchen. While he sits and thinks before he starts a drawing or model I see him moving his hands. It is as though he is sketching out in space his thoughts. When i ask his sister what he is doing she confirms this, in fact she does the same herself when they are sitting together. It seems that despite her being able to hear growing up in a household with two deaf people she has developed her own linguistic thought habits thus crossing the gulf between the world of the hearing and deaf.

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If you would like to see and maybe learn a little Signing at it’s simplest have a look ate the “Lotte & Max” kids books, they are required reading in our household !

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Deaf – Blind

In 2008 I spent a summer with very little sight, offically blind in fact, following a round of surgery. In this period I had to learn to palm-sign. Despite the description “deaf-blind” of deaf-blind people, most are not both totally deaf and totally blind It is a collective name for all variations in the combination of visual impairment / blindness and hearing impairment / deafness but whatever the exact nature I can assure you it is terrifying and painfully isolating. Communication is solely by hand and fingers.

• Vierhanden-gebarentaal - Four Hands sign language

The “vierhanden-gebarentaal” or four-hands sign language uses the same gestures as the Sign Language. The difference is that during the gestures of the speaker loosely holds the hands of the deaf-blind person so that he can feel what the other gesturing. Most signs are thus quite clearly be felt with practice and many develop custom gestures especially where some sort of specialist terms are required.

• Vingerspellen-in-de-hand - Finger Games-in-hand

The “vingerspellen-in-de-hand” or the finger games-in-hand is directly derived from the normal hand alphabet. For someone who knows Dutch manual alphabet, the finger can also be played-in-hand. It prints the letter in the palm of the deaf-blind. The rule is that spelling is done right with the right hand of the deaf-blind. An experienced person can feel the characters faster than the seeing eye can follow, though I never developed my skills to this speed.

• Lorm-schrift - Lorm-script

“Lorm-schrift” or Lorm-script consists Lorm, forming stripes and dots in the left palm of the deafblind. The reading is very difficult for the deaf and blind, but I am told that a skilled person cab get remarkable speeds with it.

The Deaf: Driving Cognitive Development Theories

The hearing can have only a general idea what this is like. Even I, deaf (acquired) as I am can only just grasp it and I have a son who thinks in sign ! The gulf between spoken and visual language is far greater than that between, say, Dutch and English. Recent PET Scan studies of the deaf and hearing brains have shown that there is a structural difference in brain structures. What  is even more interesting is that PET Scans of people with acquired deafness who have learn’t sign show structural changes taking place as their signing skills develop and this has provided the big clue to the theory that how we think can actually rearrange the physical structure of the brain itself. This has opened up a whole new area of study into the brain and it’s physiological reaction to external stimulus.

Author: Judith