Perspectives on the DEAF Community

Perspectives on the DEAF Community Mr. Bart’s ASL III Class

Overview • Deaf people are subject to two different models (ways of seeing). • These two models are: • MEDICAL (or PATHOLOGICAL) • CULTURAL or LINGUISTIC MINORITY

Overview • Depending on which model one person chooses, that will affect how they interact with Deaf people and the Deaf Community. • Currently, the majority of American society uses the Medical Model when dealing with the Deaf Community

Models MEDICAL CULTURAL LACK HEARING CAN AND SHOULD BE CURED OR FIXED TO APPROACH “NORMAL” (NORMAL BEING HEARING) USES STANDARDS FROM HEARING PERSPECTIVE MEMBER OF MINORITY GROUP THAT SHARES A COMMON EXPERIENCE, LANGUAGE, AND VALUES EMBRACES DIFFERENCE OVER ONE SINGLE STANDARD DOES NOT VIEW DEAF PEOPLE AS NEEDING TO BE FIXED

MODELS “When hearing people imagine being deaf, they think of all the things they can’t do.”

MODELS “When hearing people imagine being deaf, they think of all the things they can’t do.” WHAT MODEL DOES THIS FOLLOW?

MODELS “When hearing people imagine being deaf, they think of all the things they can’t do.” MEDICAL

MODELS “When hearing people imagine being deaf, they think of all the things they can’t do.” – I. King Jordan, first Deaf president of Gallaudet University

Medical model The medical model has been the more accepted view, and in use longer. Why? RELIGION SCIENCE HUMAN NATURE

Medical model RELIGION “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” --ROMANS Chapter 10 verse 17 (the letters of Paul)

Medical model RELIGION Deafness “is a hinderance to faith” --Saint Augustine (354-430 AD), prominent Roman Catholic philosopher (in reference to Paul’s comment on hearing and faith)

Medical model RELIGION “Oral speech is the sole power that can rekindle the light God breathed into man…” “Speech alone, divine itself, is the right way to speak of divine matters.” --GiulioTarra, Italian priest, and president over the 1880 “2nd World Congress to Improve the Welfare of the Deaf and Blind”

Medical model SCIENCE New fields of science and discoveries in the 19th and 20th Century led to increased efforts to “correct” deafness.

Medical model SCIENCE Eugenics The concept of eugenics, drawn upon the new theories of Charles Darwin, led scientists to envision a future where “defects” could be bred out of humanity- evolving to the “perfect human.”

Medical model SCIENCE Eugenics Alexander Graham Bell (an audiologist and inventor of telephone technology) and other scientists took up eugenic methods as a means to eliminate causes of deafness.

Medical model SCIENCE Eugenics In 1883-84, Bell published a paper Memoir upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race, proposing that limits needed to be placed on intermarriage between deaf people, for such unions would lead to the production of more deaf people.

Medical model SCIENCE Eugenics Bell was also, naturally, a strong supporter of spoken speech and other oral methods of communication. He felt sign language separated the deaf from society.

Medical model He felt sign language separated the deaf from society Whose society?

Medical model He felt sign language separated the deaf from society Whose society? Hearing Americans The society in which Bell belonged.

Medical model SCIENCE Technology As new technology developed, people found uses to be applied towards the Deaf Community. Computer circuits led to hearing aids and increasingly smaller miniaturized technology.

Medical model SCIENCE Technology The most recent significant technological development is that of the cochlear implant.

Medical model SCIENCE Technology Basic overview of Cochlear Implant Surgery • Incision • Drilling and Sanding • Insertion • Stapling, stitching or other method

Medical model “There is a time window during which they can get an implant and learn to speak,” Djalilian said. “From the ages of two to four, that ability diminishes a little bit. And by age nine, there is zero chance that they will learn to speak properly. So it’s really important that they get recognized and evaluated early.” SCIENCE Technology Since 1985, more than 4,000 children have been implanted after the FDA approved of the surgery and implantation of children. As of 2006, children as young as 6 months old have been implanted. Dr. Hamid R. Djalilian, director of the Neurotology and Skull Base Surgery at the UC Irvine Medical Center

Medical model SCIENCE Technology Harlan Lane, Ben Bahan and others have suggested that “the public health policy which allows cochlear implant surgery on young children is scientifically and ethically flawed,” ignoring the best interest of the deaf child. These psychologists and sociologists apply a different model.

MEDICAL MODEL HUMAN NATURE Normalcy is most often defined those like “me” or “us”

MEDICAL MODEL HUMAN NATURE In a Canadian assembly regarding surgery on deaf children, a hearing mother of a deaf child said “I fully respect deaf people and their community, but surely I have a right to want surgery for my child which will make him more like me, a hearing person.”

MEDICAL MODEL HUMAN NATURE Legislator Gary Malkowski replied, “Then presumably you have no objections to deaf parents requesting surgery to make their hearing child deaf.”

CULTURAL model DEAF AS CULTURE Culture is most often defined as the shared experiences, language, beliefs, attitudes and norms of a group of people. Before the 1960s, consideration of the Deaf Community as having a culture had no real theoretical support.

CULTURAL model DEAF AS CULTURE Culture is most often defined as the shared experiences, language, beliefs, attitudes and norms of a group of people. Before the 1960s, consideration of the Deaf Community as having a culture had no theoretical support.

CULTURAL model DEAF AS CULTURE In the late 1950s, William Stokoe, a linguist working at Gallaudet University, started studying ASL, thinking that it must have the common features of all languages, such as a complex grammar and vocabulary. Other scholars assumed that ASL was simply a translation of English to gestures.

CULTURAL model DEAF AS CULTURE In 1960, Stokoe published his studies and led to other linguists researching sign language. Now the Deaf Community had a language, an essential element of culture.

CULTURAL model DEAF AS CULTURE Culture– the shared beliefs, behavior, values, and organizations of a group of people. Culture also contains the products of a society, including art and language.

CULTURAL model DEAF AS CULTURE With the realization that American Sign Language was in fact a true language, that grew separately from English (but sometimes is affected by English, in the same way English is affected by other languages), people started seeing how the Deaf Community had its own culture.

CULTURAL model DEAF AS NOT DISABILITY Disability is a concept and situation created by a majority society. The problems of being deaf are created by the society in which a deaf person lives.

CULTURAL model DEAF AS NOT DISABILITY Consider this situation: the average height of people is 4’1, to maybe 4’5. So all houses and offices are constructed towards those dimensions. Doorframes, furniture, and technology is sized for the majority of the people who use it.

CULTURAL model DEAF AS NOT DISABILITY Every once in a while someone is born who grows to be about 5’11—maybe even 6 ft tall. This person wants to work in an office. He would need new chairs and desks so he could work there. He would need a keyboard he could type, rather than a normal sized one (remember, normal=small).

CULTURAL model DEAF AS NOT DISABILITY Of course, he may need some protection because of the hazards of hitting the low doorframes- maybe protective padding on the doorframes-- those can’t be adjusted for him. Maybe he would have to wear a foam helmet. Everyone at the office would say “hey look at that guy in the helmet.”

CULTURAL model DEAF AS NOT DISABILITY Maybe the company wouldn’t want to pay for the new furniture and protective padding on the doorframes and a new computer and phone handset for him to use. They might decide not to hire him in the first place.

CULTURAL model DEAF AS NOT DISABILITY The society that decides what is normal ends up creating the disability for individuals who don’t fit in normal patterns.

CULTURAL model DEAF AS LINGUISTIC MINORITY With the widespread acceptance of ASL as a true language (you are getting credit for this class aren’t you?) comes the placement of the Deaf Community as a linguistic minority similar to many other minority groups in the United States.

CULTURAL model DEAF AS LINGUISTIC MINORITY What other linguistic minority has faced enormous struggles while living in the United States? How about the Native Americans?

CULTURAL MODEL NATIVE AMERICANS THE DEAF UNIQUE ORAL LANGUAGES DIFFERENT CULTURAL VALUES FROM MAJORITY SCHOOLS USED AS METHODS OF CHANGING THEM FACED EXTERMINATION IN VARIOUS WAYS SEGREGATED FROM MAJORITY SOCIETY UNIQUE ORAL LANGUAGE DIFFERENT CULTURAL VALUES FROM MAJORITY SCHOOLS USED AS A METHOD OF CHANGING THEM FACED EXERMINATION IN VARIOUS WAYS SEGREGATED FROM MAJORITY SOCIETY

CULTURAL model DEAF AS LINGUISTIC MINORITY “Cultural diversity is central to our understanding of what it means to be a human being; each culture lost, each language allowed to die out, reduces the scope of every person’s humanity.” --Harlan Lane

Perspectives on the DEAF Community