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Do Deaf People Have a Disability?
Abstract
Sign Language Studies 2.4 (2002) 356-379
RECENTLY I asked a colleague, a university professor I'll call Archibald, whether he thought that Deaf people have a disability. "Of course they do," he answered, "it's common sense." I believe that most hearing people and some Deaf people, too, would say the same thing. When my colleague called the conclusion common sense, he implied that the meanings of the words themselves answered my question. A disability is a limitation of function because of an impairment. Deaf people are limited in some functions because of an impairment of hearing. Therefore, Deaf people have a disability. That nicely closes the issue for my colleague, but it closes it too soon for us. To travel this issue with the common sense meanings of the words is to travel with too much a priori baggage. In particular, these meanings take deaf and disability to be physical attributes of individuals, like their blood pressure or eye color. A great deal follows from this biological understanding of deaf and disability, including much that Deaf people find hurtful and inimical to their interests. I propose, therefore, to suspend common sense on this issue long enough to explore the concepts of deaf and disability so we can see what was buried in both the question and the answer.
How did the concept of disability arise and what purposes does it serve in our societies? In several of his works, the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1980) showed how "bodies are the battlefield"—that is, how political and economic forces in the history of the Western world have fought for control of the human body and its functions. By the eighteenth century, the Western tradition of esteeming the poor was replaced by a political analysis of idleness that continues to the present. To make productive citizens out of idle burdens on the state, it was necessary to distinguish those who could not work (the sick and disabled) from those who would not work (beggars, vagabonds, and thieves). In 1994 presidential aspirant Phil Gramm, a senator from Texas, confirmed this policy objective of separating the infirm from the indolent: "[We want able-bodied] people riding in the [welfare] wagon," he said, "to get out ... and help the rest of us pull." The incoming Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, agreed (Welfare Helps Kids 1994). Likewise, the British government has stated that the products of special education "should be productive if possible and not a burden on the state" (Department of Education and Science 1978). A 1993 Japanese law similarly aims to make people with disabilities independent and thus employable (Nagase 1995).
To reduce the numbers of those who could not work and must be given a free ride, the state, starting in the eighteenth century, assumed great responsibility for ensuring the health of the population and could even penetrate the tightly knit family unit and prescribe what should happen to the child's body: hygiene, inoculation, treatments for disease, and compulsory education (Foucault 1980). These practices are generally quite desirable, and they thus formed a continuing basis for the state's claim on the control of bodies. During this era of the rise of modern medicine and the growing intervention of the state in the health of the family, the first national schools for Deaf people were founded. In order to ensure that those who could work would do so, a central purpose of those schools was to teach the Deaf pupils a trade, removing them from their families where they were poor dependents and converting them into productive members of society. The Deaf schools in Europe contained shops to teach trades such as printing, carpentry, masonry, gardening, tailoring, and so on. When schools for Deaf people were founded in the United States, they followed this model (Lane 1984).
With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, much larger numbers of people were marginalized; machinery, buildings, and transportation were designed for the normative worker. To separate the able-bodied who could work in these settings from those with disabilities who could not and to regulate the health of children and adults, it was necessary to measure, evaluate, create hierarchies...
... Os impactes de práticas monolingues e, por isso mesmo, monoculturais, são considerados por Ladd (2003) (Lane, 1989(Lane, , 1997(Lane, , 2002(Lane, , 2006Melro & César, 2009a). Isto significa sublinhar, com Quadros e Schmiedt (2006), Shohamy e Gorter (2009), Reagan (2005) ou van Herreweghe e Vermeerbergen (2004), que a Escola e as sociedades valorizem outros modos linguísticos e comunicativos ditos minoritários que, como os gestuais, são, assumidamente, a forma mais adequada de propiciar aos indivíduos uma participação legítima. ...
... Percecionados como incapazes de (bem) ouvir, de (bem) pensar e de (bem) falar, leia-se, oralizar, não raramente os surdos são descritos e apresentados por este corpus de saber audista (Bauman, 2004;Lane, 1989Lane, , 1997Lane, , 2002Swachten, 2010) como agressivos, imaturos, impulsivos, competitivos, rígidos, teimosos, desconfiados, desobedientes, moralmente atrasados, emocionalmente perturbados, mobilizando apenas o raciocínio concreto, pensamento confuso, depressivos, preguiçosos, neuróticos, entre outros (Bauman, 2004;Hoffmeister & Bahan, 1996;Pacheco & Caramelo, 2005). Impossibilitase, assim, que os princípios e as práticas investigativas sobre os surdos e a surdez assumam, como diria Foucault (1979), "sobre si mesmas os valores de todos" (p. ...
... Assim, à semelhança do que acontece com outros indivíduos sinalizados como necessitando de AESE, a diversidade apresentada pelos surdos não mais deve ser desvalorizada, exigindo que a Escola e as sociedades rompam com "todas as formas de discriminação" (UNESCO, 2008, p. 3), como as que, durante séculos, hegemonicamente impediram os surdos de ter acesso a um currículo multilingue e adequado às especificidades que apresentam, remetendo-os para formas de participação periférica e, não raras vezes, oposicionistas (Afonso, 2007(Afonso, , 2008Bagga-Gupta, 20004, 2007;Skliar, 1998c;Skutnabb-Kangas, 2008 (Abreu, Bishop, & Presmeg, 2002;César, 2013aCésar, , 2013bCorreia, 2008;UNESCO, 2013), possibilitando que a participação dos estudantes na cultura das escolas não exija uma rutura relativamente às culturas sociais e familiares em que também participam (César, 20013a, 2013b;Cortesão, 2009;Leite, 2007). Isto significa deixar de focar a educação dos surdos numa abordagem monocultural de cariz assimilacionista e audista (Bauman, 2004;Lane, 1989Lane, , 1997Lane, , 2002Swachten, 2010), desmistificando a conceção de que o currículo é neutro. Parafraseando Barroso e Leite (2011), diríamos que ele é construído pelos contextos onde é desenvolvido, pelos interesses, características e necessidades dos estudantes a que se destina, pelas experiências de vida dessa população e pelos "recursos existentes nas comunidades" (Barroso & Leite, 2011, p. 97). ...
https://repositorio.ul.pt/handle/10451/15837
... Many deaf people "consider themselves to be not disabled, but a linguistic minority" (Lane 2002;Scully 2004) and, in fact, "available evidence suggests that most deaf people have no preference for having deaf or hearing children" (Scully 2004). ...
... People who suffer from achondroplasia consider that this is a disability but, at the same time, they consider that the degree or severity of such a disability does not depend on biological factors intrinsic to the disease but on factors that come from social circumstances: prejudices, lack of infrastructures adapted to their height, etc. (Lane 2002;Scully 2004). Therefore, "'disability' as an experience should not be confused with simply having an impairment" (Scully 2004). ...
The framework presented by Bayefsky and Berkman (2022) is based on having clear and accurate genetic information to offer parents, for them to either decide to prepare for birth or to terminate the pregnancy. The first issue to be addressed is that the view of the genetic information offered by the authors is presented as linear and simplistic, assuming that there is a clear and unequivocal cause-effect relationship, that is, each gene is equivalent to a disorder, as a clear and precise certainty.
However, progress in the discipline opens a more complex picture, in which the expression of a gene is influenced by multiple factors, both internal and external. At present, what we do not know about much of our genetic functioning is more than what we know: how different clusters of genes interact, the role of epigenetic inheritance, or how it interacts with the environment. Genetic information presents a more complex picture than was initially assumed, so the sole presence of a gene or genetic marker cannot always predict the development of the disease or the degree of involvement.
... Differing from the term "deaf" with a lowercase "d" which refers to the audiologic lack of hearing, the Deaf community de ne deafness as their linguistic and cultural identity rather than perceiving deafness as a disability. These individuals share a common experience of using sign language and adopting Deaf cultural norms [4,5]. Despite their substantial numbers, the healthcare needs of the Deaf community have not been adequately addressed, resulting in poorer health outcomes and different healthcare utilization patterns compared to the general hearing population. ...
Background
Deaf individuals confront healthcare disparities from communication barriers, aggravated by Deaf culture ignorance and limitations of lip-reading. While medically-trained sign language interpreters (SLIs) offer solutions, shortages persist. Thus, the Deaf in Touch Everywhere (DITE™) app was developed to provide virtual SLI services through teleconferencing. This study investigates the app's feasibility and factors influencing the adaptation and utilization by the stakeholders.
Methods
This study adheres to the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Studies (COREQ) guidelines. Participants (≥ 18 years) were purposively sampled and comprised of three stakeholder groups: Malaysian sign language (BIM) users (BNUs), BIM interpreters (JBIMs), and healthcare providers (HCPs). They were involved in simulated medical consultations via video conferencing using the DITE™ app. Following this, three focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted. Interview questionnaires were designed using the extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT); encompassing performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, and behavioural intention. Recorded interviews with JBIMs and HCPs were transcribed verbatim, while transcripts from BNUs were derived from video recordings. Results were imported into NVivo 12 software, and thematic analysis was performed.
Results
Nineteen participants, comprising six BNUs, six JBIMs, and seven HCPs, participated in three FGDs. The findings were categorized according to the five UTAUT categories and were explored within each participant group. Within the performance expectancy, themes relating to the strengths and limitations of DITE app emerged. Effort expectancy themes encompassed adaptation/adjustment, challenges/setbacks, and navigation/interface of the app. Social influence themes included concerns about data privacy/confidentiality, medicolegal acceptance, and encouragement to use app from relevant stakeholders. Facilitating conditions encompassed themes like confidentiality, support availability, prior relationship with interpreters, previous consultation experiences, and familiarity with telecommunication tools. Regarding behavioural intention, themes that emerged were app usage and promotion and comparing telemedicine and face-to-face consultations with DITE app. In addition, limiting conditions and areas for improvement were discussed.
Conclusion
The DITE app holds the potential to tackle communication barriers between Deaf individuals and HCPs. However, ongoing research, fine-tuning, and strategic deployment are vital to maximize its effectiveness in enhancing healthcare accessibility and outcomes for the Deaf community in Malaysia.
... Therefore, the participants believe that the challenges that deaf students have in learning FL result from deafness, which FL teachers claim creates a cognitive disability. However, the participants' misunderstandings contrast with what the research studies show about deafness, that deafness does not result in a cognitive disability (Lane, 2002). Instead, the practice of using only oral language (e.g. ...
... This goes against the typical view that assumes that deafness is an impairment in the form of the lack of one of the senses and that the primary experience of deafness is not hearing. The former assumption has been challenged by d/Deaf academics, who argue that the straightforward understanding of d/Deaf people as disabled is more complex than it may at first seem (Lane, 2002). For instance, it has been argued that rather than having hearing loss, d/Deaf people have deaf gain, a way of being in the world that has valuable contributions to make to society (Bauman & Murray, 2014). ...
This thesis explores how (dis)abled children in one inner-city English primary
school experience classroom space in an embodied way. It takes Disabled
Children’s Childhood Students (DCCS) as a starting point and applies
Deleuzoguattarian ideas such as the assemblage and becoming, to contribute
new knowledge to how classroom space disables and enables. The study took
place over a seven-month period and involved 47 children who, in a novel
approach, took part regardless of a label of special educational needs (SEN),
disability or impairment. The children shared their experiences through various
creative and visual qualitative methods, including photography, drawings and
model rooms. These, combined with observations of the whole classroom
space, were analysed thematically, paying attention to lines of flight, leading to
various significant findings. Firstly, I found that the classroom space was
saturated by the idea of vertical development: a normative expectation that
children grow physically and metaphorically upwards towards adulthood.
However, I also observed resistance from children to this idea. One original
contribution to knowledge that this study makes is seeing photography as both
a creative method and a form of resistance, as children who took part could turn
the lens back on adults. Further insights included how certain forms of
embodiment in the classroom are encouraged while others are discouraged.
These are linked to ideas of crip epistemic insight: a perspective that privileges
the experiences of disabled people’s embodied experiences of the world.
Finally, I discuss the resistance and joyful potential in “leaks” which challenge
the boundaries imposed on children’s bodies. Specifically, I contribute to the
small but growing field of toilet studies in discussing expected behaviour in and
around toilets. The thesis takes ideas from DCCS and assemblage theory and
applies them in new ways to (dis)abled children’s embodied experiences,
making valuable methodological and theoretical contributions.
... As a consequence, a disability is seen as something that should be "cured" or "fixed." For members of the deaf community, this often implies being denied access to sign language and being pushed to acquiesce in technologies of normalization, such as cochlear implant surgery (Lane, 2002). ...
Sign languages, just like many indigenous languages, have traditionally been subject to language prejudice and suppression, based in no small part on invalid claims about their structural complexity. In this chapter, we aim to contribute to the discussion on language prejudice by broadening the scope to include deaf communities and their sign languages. We review and reject claims according to which languages can be classified as “primitive” or “evolved” based on the absence of certain grammatical categories. One such grammatical category are conjunctions, and we investigate in some detail their absence or presence in sign languages. We present examples from various sign languages which show that – just as in spoken languages – conjunctions may emerge through diachronic processes of borrowing and grammaticalization. Focusing on data from Brazilian Sign Language, we then demonstrate that both these processes are at play in the language and that manual conjunctions marking disjunctive, adversative, conditional, and causal relations have entered the lexicon. Our hope is that these findings will contribute – albeit modestly – to the status of Brazilian Sign Language.KeywordsSign languageConjunctionGrammaticalizationBorrowingLanguage prejudice
... Social scientists have long argued that the medical discourse of deafness as disability to overcome, or a disease to be treated, marginalizes DHH people (Blume & Hiddinga, 2010;Lane, 2002;Mauldin, 2019). Anthropologists maintain that deafness is "not merely an absence of hearing" but it is "at least in part, a social construction" (Senghas & Monaghan, 2002, pp. ...
This review article examines how different types of communication technologies, from the specialized medical to generic social devices, influence belonging and sociality among deaf and hard‐of‐hearing (DHH) people. The emphasis is on DHH adolescents and young adults who may be impacted differently across countries, given state‐specific policies regarding the status of sign language and deaf education, and based on different availability, affordability, and accessibility of communication technologies. We introduce different perspectives on deafness, ranging from pathological to cultural, a heuristic on which we build to explore DHH socialities as complex and evolving. We then analytically review ethnographic research on how cochlear implants impact DHH people's belonging to the “deaf world” and/or the “hearing world,” and how they navigate between these worlds. Then we move on to technologies such as text messages and social media, which enable DHH people to extend their socialities beyond local communities. Belonging is a fluid phenomenon, and technologies which are in a constant process of innovation and development may influence it in complex ways. We argue that to explore questions of belonging, identity, and sociality among DHH people, and how they are shaped by technologies, (visual) ethnographic methods are particularly productive.
... In turn, those being denied rights often claimed to be deserving of civil rights by claiming membership within the categorization of whiteness or ablebodiedness, thereby denying membership in the categories of being 'colored' or disabled (May and Ferri 2005). Some who advocate for a strong deaf culture argue they should be categorized as not disabled (Baynton 2001;Lane 2002), but as a linguistic minority. Early suffrage posters, advocating the right of women to vote, often relied on juxtaposing visual images of the educated and cultured white woman with images of men of color and men who were visually coded as insane or feebleminded (Ferri 2011). ...
... Members of the Deaf community reject the claim that having hearing impairments has an adverse effect on their quality of life and well-being, and instead self-identify as a cultural minority group. 45 Relatedly, members of the Deaf community criticize medical procedures to install cochlear implants that allow people with hearing impairments to hear, arguing that these procedures constitute an affront to the Deaf community's cul-ture and heritage. 46 Similarly, the neurodiversity movement is associated with the claim that atypical neurological traits associated with conditions such as autism are not defects to be avoided and treated, but rather differences that are not inherently disadvantaging. ...
In her recent book, “Faces of Inequality: A Theory of Wrongful Discrimination” (OUP 2020) Sophia Moreau asks when and why practices that disadvantage some people relative to others wrong those people by failing to treat them as equals. Moreau argues that some practices fail to treat people as the equals of others by unfairly subordinating them; other practices fail to treat people as equals by violating their right to “deliberative freedom”; and still others fail to treat people as equals by denying them some “basic good”. Moreau puts forth a pluralist theory of discrimination, arguing that each of these ways of failing to treat people as equals can serve as an independent reason why some act constitutes wrongful discrimination.
My comment focuses on Moreau’s account of unfair subordination. I argue that while it has the advantage of explaining the wrong in discrimination on the basis of disability, the various ways in which society contributes to the subordination of disabled people shows that Moreau's theory is nonetheless overinclusive and leads to implausible implications. My primary example is of practices that reduce disability¹ in the general population through prevention or “cure”,² which I will call “disability reduction practices”.³ As I will explain, some of these practices have been criticized on the grounds of the message that they send about the lesser value of disabled people’s lives. Such practices are further subject to criticism for having additional adverse effects on disabled people’s lives. I will argue that Moreau’s theory of discrimination suggests that these practices constitute wrongful discrimination, because they contribute to disabled people’s subordination. However, I will argue that even if it is granted that disability reduction practices contribute to disabled people’s subordination, such practices do not constitute wrongful discrimination because—and insofar as—they involve one’s treatment of oneself, not of others. Moreau’s conception of discrimination mistakenly views these practices as wrongful discrimination because her account of subordination is too broad. Focusing heavily on the status of social groups, it views as discriminatory also practices that do not involve treatment of others.
... Cette recherche sur l'emploi et le travail des sourds est singulière par les sujets mêmes auprès de qui nous avons enquêté pendant deux ans, parce qu'ils sont inscrits dans une double expérience sociale du handicap et d'une culture minoritaire (Lane, 2002 ;Jones et al., 1992 ;Kyle et al., 1988). Cette combinaison renverse constamment ou presque la force normative des rapports sociaux, faisant que des comportements et des pratiques légitimes pour les uns sont tenus pour des déviances aux yeux des autres, car la déviance, comme l'écrit Howard Becker, est « le produit d'un processus qui implique la réponse des autres individus » (1985 : 37). ...
Scientific Report n°110 - CEET (centre d'étude de l'emploi et du travail)
Grant Dress-CNSA
... When this claim comes from people who identify as members of the Deaf culture it rests on the view-associated with the Tragedy model-that disability is a loss caused by impairments. The claim is that deafness is not a disability because it does not involve such a loss; instead, it is a human variation, or a different way of being with its own positive value (e.g., Lane 2002). In other words, the rejection of the label of disability for deaf people is a rejection of the applicability of the Tragedy model's view of disability onto the condition of deafness. ...
This article puts forth a novel framework for understanding conceptions of disability using six models of disability: the “Social,” “Medical,” “Tragedy,” “Affirmative,” “Minority” and “Universal” models. It analyzes these models as three opposed pairs, each pertaining to a distinct aspect of the multifaceted experience of disability: (1) the cause of disabled people’s social disadvantage and exclusion; (2) the effect of impairment on individuals’ quality of life and well-being; (3) the dichotomy or lack thereof between disabled and nondisabled people. The article argues that although each model is incompatible with its opposed pair, it is compatible with the remaining four models, in the sense that there is no contradiction in holding the views associated with these models at the same time. It therefore concludes that conceptions of disability are best understood as clusters of views on disability that are associated with compatible models.
... This brings us to the point of the often-taboo subject of talking about deafness as a disability (Lane, 2002). Difficulties to read, write, and comprehend in Swedish in this case can have different origins. ...
This book explores the societal resistance to accessibility for persons with disabilities, and tries to set an example of how to study exclusion in a time when numerous policies promise inclusion.
With 12 chapters organised in three parts, the book takes a comprehensive approach to accessibility, covering transport and communication, knowledge and education, law and organisation. Topics within a wide cross-disciplinary field are covered, including disability studies, social work, sociology, ethnology, social anthropology, and history. The main example is Sweden, with its implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities within the context of the Nordic welfare state. By identifying and discussing persistent social and cultural conditions as well as recurring situations and interactions that nurture resistance to advancing accessibility, despite various strong laws promoting it, the book’s conclusions are widely transferable. It argues for the value of alternating between methods, theoretical perspectives, and datasets to explore how new arenas, resources and technologies cause new accessibility concerns — and possibilities — for persons living with impairments. We need to be able to follow actors closely to uncover how they feel, act, and argue, but also to connect to wider discursive and institutional patterns and systems.
This book will be of interest to scholars and students of disability studies, social work, sociology, ethnology, social anthropology, political science, and organisation studies.
... This brings us to the point of the often-taboo subject of talking about deafness as a disability (Lane, 2002). Difficulties to read, write, and comprehend in Swedish in this case can have different origins. ...
... Individuals who identify themselves as upper case "D" Deaf or DeafBlind and the few who identify as hard of hearing (HOH) consider themselves a cultural minoritized community and not "disabled" (Lane, 2002). Sometimes scholars, including myself, disaggregate Deaf/HOH from "disabilities" when discussing their research or argument. ...
COVID-19 and Higher Education in the Global Context: Exploring Contemporary Issues and Challenges addresses the lasting impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in the higher education sector and offers insights that inform policy and practice. Framed in a global context, this timely book captures a wide variety of topics, including student mobility, global partnerships and collaboration, student health and wellbeing, enrollment management,
employability, and graduate education. It is designed to serve as a resource for scholar-practitioners, policymakers, and university administrators as they reimagine their work of comparative and international higher education in times of crisis. The collection of chapters assembled in this volume calls for a critical reflection on the opportunities and challenges that have emerged as a result of the global pandemic, and provides as a basis for how tertiary education systems around the world can learn from past experiences and shared viewpoints as institutions recalibrate operations, innovate programs, and manage change on their respective campuses.
... Individuals who identify themselves as upper case "D" Deaf or DeafBlind and the few who identify as hard of hearing (HOH) consider themselves a cultural minoritized community and not "disabled" (Lane, 2002). Sometimes scholars, including myself, disaggregate Deaf/HOH from "disabilities" when discussing their research or argument. ...
As the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, international higher education (IHE) enters a new territory and complicates models that describe a third wave of internationalization. Against this backdrop, we apply a three-layer (country, institution,
individual) analysis to understand COVID-19’s impact on IHE in Canada and the United States, on particularly student mobility, and consider the future of an altered landscape. At the national level, we consider how the two countries are responding to COVID-19 regarding their policies toward international students and what long-term impact might be looming. At the institutional level, we consider the pandemic’s impact on institutions’ revenue, mission, internationalization strategies, and even survival. At the individual level, we examine how this pandemic impacts international students’ plan of study in Canada and the United States, with their concern for the expense and experience of online learning and their consideration of other alternative destination countries.
... This has made the oralism versus manualism debate even more politically complex. Deaf people have long resisted this sort of suppression and rejected the claim that they need to be "fixed" (Lane, 2008). A long history of suppression motivates Deaf people to preserve their Deaf identity. ...
... Or are they a linguistic minority, defined by using sign languages as their main mode of communication? According to Harlan Lane (Lane 2002) deaf people have to resist the label of disability, because first and most of all deafness is neither an impairment nor a disability. Secondly, deaf people do not have common interests with the disability rights movement: ...
... Or are they a linguistic minority, defined by using sign languages as their main mode of communication? According to Harlan Lane (Lane 2002) deaf people have to resist the label of disability, because first and most of all deafness is neither an impairment nor a disability. Secondly, deaf people do not have common interests with the disability rights movement: ...
... Or are they a linguistic minority, defined by using sign languages as their main mode of communication? According to Harlan Lane (Lane 2002) deaf people have to resist the label of disability, because first and most of all deafness is neither an impairment nor a disability. Secondly, deaf people do not have common interests with the disability rights movement: ...
... Or are they a linguistic minority, defined by using sign languages as their main mode of communication? According to Harlan Lane (Lane 2002) deaf people have to resist the label of disability, because first and most of all deafness is neither an impairment nor a disability. Secondly, deaf people do not have common interests with the disability rights movement: ...
... Or are they a linguistic minority, defined by using sign languages as their main mode of communication? According to Harlan Lane (Lane 2002) deaf people have to resist the label of disability, because first and most of all deafness is neither an impairment nor a disability. Secondly, deaf people do not have common interests with the disability rights movement: ...
... Or are they a linguistic minority, defined by using sign languages as their main mode of communication? According to Harlan Lane (Lane 2002) deaf people have to resist the label of disability, because first and most of all deafness is neither an impairment nor a disability. Secondly, deaf people do not have common interests with the disability rights movement: ...
... Or are they a linguistic minority, defined by using sign languages as their main mode of communication? According to Harlan Lane (Lane 2002) deaf people have to resist the label of disability, because first and most of all deafness is neither an impairment nor a disability. Secondly, deaf people do not have common interests with the disability rights movement: ...
... Or are they a linguistic minority, defined by using sign languages as their main mode of communication? According to Harlan Lane (Lane 2002) deaf people have to resist the label of disability, because first and most of all deafness is neither an impairment nor a disability. Secondly, deaf people do not have common interests with the disability rights movement: ...
... Or are they a linguistic minority, defined by using sign languages as their main mode of communication? According to Harlan Lane (Lane 2002) deaf people have to resist the label of disability, because first and most of all deafness is neither an impairment nor a disability. Secondly, deaf people do not have common interests with the disability rights movement: ...
This essay is an autoethnography of becoming Black. It engages my coming to terms with the fact that I have been cornered, as it were, and forced to recognise myself as a being who is othered in a racial classification that was not consciously part of my self-identification before I came to study in Berlin. While exploring the phenomenology of Blackness in spaces where I find myself othered, I also draw a comparative outlook from domestic intercultural power relations in my country of origin, Ethiopia, where the ethnic group I belong to, the Amharas, do the othering. I argue, in my sense-making and ethnographic journey, that the ambiguity and intricacy of Blackness has granted me a redemptive stability in navigating the world and in demystifying the logic of my oppression as a newly profiled black person in Berlin and the logic of my cultural positioning as an oppressor in Ethiopia. The essay, as such, is an invitation for a reflection on the confluence of the two positions.
... Many deaf signers do not identify as disabled in terms of the medical model of deafness, as they do not consider their condition to be an impediment and they do not consider themselves to have a hearing loss but a hearing difference. 2 The World Federation of the Deaf asserts that signing deaf communities need linguistic rights, highlighting a critical need for them to receive and give information using a language of their choice (usually their national sign language) in all contexts, including official interactions. Failure to do so not only violates their linguistic rights but perpetuates the exclusion of deaf signers in society. ...
There is a need for culturally competent health care providers (HCPs) to provide care to deaf signers, who are members of a linguistic and cultural minority group. Many deaf signers have lower health literacy levels due to deprivation of incidental learning opportunities and inaccessibility of health-related materials, increasing their risk for poorer health outcomes. Communication barriers arise because HCPs are ill-prepared to serve this population, with deaf signers reporting poor-quality interactions. This has translated to errors in diagnosis, patient nonadherence, and ineffective health information, resulting in mistrust of the health care system and reluctance to seek treatment. Sign language interpreters have often not received in-depth medical training, compounding the dynamic process of medical interpreting. HCPs should thus become more culturally competent, empowering them to provide cultural- and language-concordant services to deaf signers. HCPs who received training in cultural competency showed increased knowledge and confidence in interacting with deaf signers. Similarly, deaf signers reported more positive experiences when interacting with medically certified interpreters, HCPs with sign language skills, and practitioners who made an effort to improve communication. However, cultural competency programs within health care education remain inconsistent. Caring for deaf signers requires complex, integrated competencies that need explicit attention and practice repeatedly in realistic, authentic learning tasks ordered from simple to complex. Attention to the needs of deaf signers can start early in the curriculum, using examples of deaf signers in lectures and case discussions, followed by explicit discussions of Deaf cultural norms and the potential risks of low written and spoken language literacy. Students can subsequently engage in role plays with each other or representatives of the local signing deaf community. This would likely ensure that future HCPs are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to provide appropriate care and ensure equitable health care access for deaf signers.
... We can see that deaf people have struggled to bring their knowledge and experience of Deaf culture and American Sign Language (ASL) to the academic community. They have struggled in the face of the dominance and power of hearing academics and professionals who formulate negative and oftentimes inaccurate explanations about them as a social group (Lane, 1992(Lane, , 2008. It has been argued that the dominative processes of oralism are at the crux of the disadvantages experienced by deaf people. ...
Although Deaf Studies has made a significant contribution to research on oppression, there has been little attempt at sensitizing hearing students to issues of power and privilege within the field. A major reason for this lapse is the manifestation and maintenance of hearing privilege within Deaf Studies. Most Deaf Studies courses tend to discuss oppression as problems affecting deaf people, thereby neglecting to explore the advantages of hearing-abled people due to that oppression. The workings of hearing privilege are rarely problematized in Deaf Studies teaching and research because it is invisible, normalized, and structurally embedded. In this study, the author argues for the importance of incorporating the concepts of both oppression and hearing privilege into Deaf Studies programs. If there is an expectation to study oppression, then hearing students and academics of Deaf Studies need to be prepared to explore the concept of hearing privilege. The author discusses and reflects upon his experiences of delivering social justice workshops to hearing people within the field of Deaf Studies. He contends that bringing hearing privilege into debate within Deaf Studies can enable hearing people to become aware of their privilege and take responsibility for challenging inequality.
... For the majority of people who are not aware of the counter narratives of Deaf cultural discourse, their assessment of Deaf people will be influenced by dominant constructions of Deaf people in relation to a deficit hearing person with an inability to hear (Lane, 1992;Ladd, 2003;). Lane (2008) points out that this is seen as a common sense position to hold by most hearing as well as some deaf people. However, there is a growing body of work that distinguishes Deaf cultural epistemological understanding of Deaf identity. ...
... For the majority of people who are not aware of the counter narratives of Deaf cultural discourse, their assessment of Deaf people will be influenced by dominant constructions of Deaf people in relation to a deficit hearing person with an inability to hear (Lane, 1992;Ladd, 2003;). Lane (2008) points out that this is seen as a common sense position to hold by most hearing as well as some deaf people. However, there is a growing body of work that distinguishes Deaf cultural epistemological understanding of Deaf identity. ...
Central to any anti-oppressive research endeavour is the importance of reflexivity and the genuine attempt from researchers to turn the research tools on themselves (Hermans, 2019). Beyond research, the social work profession has much to learn from the reflexive accounts of researchers. Issues of identity, language and culture are widely recognised as important when working with service users and carers in social work; however, this is much less the case when considering identities of social work practitioners. Starting with personal and professional positions of Black female and Deaf female social workers, this article reveals the reflexive journey of the Black female hearing researcher undertaking the research. The article takes an original approach to theory construction by introducing ‘ Africanist Sista-hood in Britain’ and marrying this with Deaf cultural discourse in the form of Deafhood, Deaf ethnicity and Deaf Gain, all of which make valuable contribution to existing debates in identity politics and the importance of self-naming and self-actualisation. Within the article the author discusses epistemological challenges in theory construction, data collection, language, transcription and dissemination, as they linked to power, privilege and the different forms this took within the research.
The article makes a number of significant contributions. It introduces Africanist Sista-hood in Britain as a useful theoretical framework in research and at the same time encourages theoretical alliances across other marginalised groups. In discussing issues of knowledge production beyond existing hegemonic frames, it offers a broadening of the lens beyond the ways in which identity, culture and ethnicity are currently understood in the mainstream. In discussing Deaf cultural discourse and its influence on methodological choices it invites researchers to better engage with these issues from perspectives articulated by Deaf people.
... Communication is essential in a person's life. However, the hearing and speech impaired community are disengaged as they can neither perceive information normally like other human beings [3] nor express clearly their thoughts and hence cannot participate in normal conversations [4] or group interactions which can be inconvenient if they are on their own and without any assistance [5]. Very often, normal beings cannot comprehend their struggles and gravity of their inabilities, so they tend to feel annoyed if they have to repeat themselves [6]. ...
... The capitalized Deaf is used to refer to members of a linguistic and cultural community of people who use American Sign Language; 'deaf' is generally used to refer to audiological status. Many culturally Deaf people do not consider themselves "disabled" or claim a disability identity(Lane, 2008), though many also recognize that they are seen by hearing/able-bodied individuals as disabled. Some find common ground with disability rights activists and scholars who eschew biological and medical definitions and work toward a recognition of culture, shared values, and civil rights. ...
In this chapter, Coffman-Rosen and Ostrove reflect on disability as situated in psychology and interdisciplinary feminist theory, analyzing disability’s intersection with gender and other social oppressions, identities, and locations. They highlight the transgressive potential of centering disability within feminist psychology and share how doing this transformed their pedagogy and academic lives. Using a disability-centered perspective, they examine the power dynamics of gender and disability in psychology and related social sciences, featuring the voices of disabled women who chose their own narratives. Their work is grounded in a first person exploration of their academic and personal lives, connecting their social identities and locations to their scholarly and pedagogical frameworks. It also addresses strategies for—and student reactions to—taking this work to the next generation.
This research aims to define and identify the characteristics of hearing culture in the United States, particularly in contrast to Deaf culture. Through three focus group interviews with 18 participants from different backgrounds, including deaf individuals with both deaf and hearing parents, as well as hearing individuals affiliated with the Deaf community, key themes emerged. These themes included defining cultures, audiovocal orientation, mixed spaces, negotiating one’s role as a hearing person, perception, development of hearing identity, and orientation. This study seeks to shed light on the ways in which hearing individuals navigate the world with their primary senses of listening and speaking, in contrast to deaf individuals who rely on vision and touch. Ultimately, this research aims to provide a better understanding of the complexities of cultural dynamics between the hearing and Deaf worlds. Ultimately, a definition of hearing culture emerged from the data.
This chapter discusses prospects for the conservation and development of Zimbabwean Sign Language (ZSL) in light of the advent of mobile media technologies in Zimbabwe. The background to the discussion is that, in this developing country, less than 20 years ago many people who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) lived and grew up in large residential institutions, where they used prescribed hearing-aid technology and used ZSL underground as the latter was considered detrimental to the development of spoken language communication. With the advent of inclusive education and philosophies related to community-based rehabilitation, more people who are deaf now live and learn within their mainstream communities, where they make use of the more widely available mobile technology and therefore have greater communication demands and more communication partners outside their immediate spheres. The crux of the chapter’s discussion is that the increased opportunities to communicate with diverse populations may come with latent identity crises in the lives of some deaf people using mobile technologies. The crises potentially arise from the possibility that local norms and particularly culture-based signing conventions may be overshadowed and considered inferior to those originating elsewhere. On the other hand, if organizations of Deaf people are involved in strategizing, these mobile technologies have the potential to document local ZSL varieties. This would preserve ZSL and Deaf culture for posterity and so empower local Deaf people to view themselves as linguistic minority citizens who, like any other linguistic minority, do not require therapy.
Taboo topics in deaf communities include the usual ones found in spoken languages, as well as ones particular to deaf experiences, both in how deaf people relate to hearing people and how deaf people interact with other deaf people. Attention to these topics can help linguists understand better the consequences of field method choices and lead them to adopt better ones. Taboo expressions in American Sign Language are innovative regarding the linguistic structures they play with. This creativity is evident across the grammar in non-taboo expressions, but seems to revel in profane ones. When it comes to the syntax, however, certain types of structures occur in taboo expressions that are all but absent elsewhere, showing grammatical possibilities that might have gone unnoticed without attention to taboo. Taboo expressions are innovative, as well, in how they respond to changing culture, where lexical items that are incoherent with community sensibilities are 'corrected'.
One prominent argument against the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis to select a deaf embryo with the aim of creating a deaf child is that it violates the child's right to an open future. This paper challenges the open future argument against deaf embryo selection, criticizing its major premise that deafness limits a child's opportunity range in ways that compromise their future autonomy. I argue that this premise is not justified and is supported by negative presumptions about deaf embodiments that are suspect and in need of further argumentation. First, available interpretations of the open future concept fail to justify the devaluation of deaf traits as inherently autonomy-diminishing. Second, arguing against deaf embryo selection requires demonstrating that a deaf trait generally constrains opportunity ranges independent of social context. But such analyses neglect important social and relational components of autonomy. For these reasons, merely appealing to the child's right to an open future does not sufficiently support the conclusion that deaf embryo selection is wrong.
Deaf education is an incoherent macrosystem whose sub‐systems—e.g., biomedical vs. sociocultural institutions—contradict. Unreconciled tensions cause stagnation, not regeneration, and harmful dissensus in deaf educational sub‐systems. To revitalize deaf education, address these contradictions, and eliminate incoherence, we posit that a deafled systemic transformation of deaf education is necessary; furthermore, we argue it may best be realized through theories and actions constitutive of anarchism. To this end, we synthesize four thematic loci where anarchism overtly aligns with constructs immanent in deaf communities. First, collectivism is necessary for survival in anarchist and deaf communities toward shared goals including equity in education, social labor, and politics. Second, mutual aid is integral—like anarchists who work arm‐in‐arm, deaf individuals and groups exhibit uncanny solidarity across political, cultural, technological, linguistic, and geographical boundaries. Third, direct action tactics overlap in both groups: When facing internal or external threats, both communities effectively rally local mechanisms to affect change. Finally, both groups exhibit a stubborn, existential refusal to be subdued or ruled by outsiders. Reframing systemic dilemmas in deaf education via anarchism is a novel, beneficial praxis that’s only been tangentially explored. Centering anarchism in deaf education also generates succor for ongoing struggles about sign language in deaf communities. Toward the horizon of radical equality, our staunchly anarchist analysis of deaf education argues that to guide deaf‐positive system change neoliberalism is inert and neo‐fascism anathema.
Deaf lives are shaped by individual and social biographies, access to social and educational infrastructures, and the kinds of deafness a person is born with or acquires. In Benin – as in many other parts of the global south where medical and geographic conditions foster illnesses that produce hearing loss – there is a higher incidence of deafness acquired in childhood and adolescence than in those regions that cradled DEAF-DEAF-SAME concepts like cultural Deafness and deaf similitude. Underlying these concepts is the assumption that the shared experience of being deaf is what defines deaf social life, wherever it exists. Challenging that assumption, this dissertation uses the case of Benin to argue that, in regions where there is greater deaf diversity, deaf communities and socialities are just as much constructed and negotiated around difference as they are around similitude. The multicultural, multiethnic, and multilinguistic setup of Beninese society constitutes a background of habitual diversity that both accommodates variation and enforces distinction. The social diversity of hearing Benin is reflected in the country’s deaf sociality. At the same time, deaf Beninese are entangled in local, regional, national, and transnational deaf belongings, discourses, and power relations. In putting deaf diversity center stage, this dissertation does not deny the role similitude plays in deaf sociality but uncovers the ambiguities and DEAF-DEAF-DIFFERENT complexities that tend to be overlooked in the homogenizing discourses and politics of similitude, identity, and community.
Having conducted a review of the impact of the Scottish national BSL plan on deaf education, in particular its issues, failures and successes, during Phase 1 of this project, the purpose of this report was to ascertain whether there is an appetite at government or local authority level for deaf children to be educated in either BSL-medium or bilingual schools-or whether parents of deaf children expect to see such provision-within the countries of Scotland and Wales, which have Welsh-and Gaelic-medium education provision respectively. Nineteen interviews with a total of 21 participants were carried out with Scottish and Welsh Government civil servants, national public body representatives, council officials, college and university representatives, families of deaf children, Teachers of the Deaf and third sector employees. There were marked differences in the conceptualisation of BSL as a language between top-, mid-and low-level, with the top-level tending to veer towards BSL as a communication tool and having a greater awareness of language policy and the right to language. At the mid-and low-level, there was however, a tendency to frame deaf children according to their audiological status, and that even though health-more specifically audiology-is outside education, it clearly exerts a huge force over the work of Teachers of the Deaf which would explain their attitudes towards BSL. Gaps in early years provision for deaf children also emerged as an important theme, with recognition that it is this period that is vital for language acquisition. The final theme identified through the interview stage was the availability or scarcity of resources in both Wales and Scotland for the teaching of BSL and in deaf education. We make 14 recommendations grouped under five headings: early years, language pedagogies, BSL teachers, Teachers of the Deaf and language policy. These include developing a new profession of BSL therapists to support efforts to develop BSL in deaf children in early years, the development of language pedagogies courses, the commissioning of mapping exercise of BSL teachers, the expansion of undergraduate and postgraduate courses to provide opportunities to develop fluency in BSL, initial teaching training courses that incorporate BSL, and training for qualified teachers,
This essay explores the changing shape of transitions from education to employment amongst deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHOH) youth in Russia. It draws on survey and interview data to show that, despite the formal institution of inclusive policies and legal frameworks at the state level, the choices open to DHOH youth remain heavily limited, and become narrower at each stage of their transitions to adulthood. This narrowing of horizons and attendant marginalisation stems from the ongoing salience of disabling, medical approaches to deafness; a lack of enabling practices or resources to support DHOH youth in the education system; and widespread discrimination from employers.
Purpose
Genes associated with nonsyndromic hearing loss are commonly included in reproductive carrier screening panels, which are now routinely offered in preconception and prenatal care in many countries. However, there is debate whether hearing loss should be considered a medical condition appropriate for screening. This systematic review assessed research on opinions of those with a lived experience of deafness and the general public regarding genetic testing for deafness in the reproductive setting.
Methods
Search of 5 online databases yielded 423 articles, 20 of which met inclusion criteria. We assessed the quality of each study, extracted data, and performed thematic analysis on qualitative studies.
Results
Most studies indicated interest in the use of prenatal diagnosis for deafness. However, there were mixed views, and sometimes strongly held views, expressed regarding the reproductive options that should be available to those with an increased chance of having a child with deafness. Studies were small, from a limited number of countries, and most were too old to include views regarding preimplantation genetic testing.
Conclusion
There is a broad range of views regarding the use of reproductive options for deafness. Further research is essential to explore the benefits and harms of including nonsyndromic hearing loss genes in carrier screening.
This article argues that deaf musical knowledge became epistemically excluded from systems of musical thought in the United States as the result of a battle between two competing philosophies of deaf education in the nineteenth century: manualism and oralism. It reveals how oralist educators explicitly framed music as exclusively involving “normal hearing”—and thus as outside of deaf knowledge except through technological intervention—by drawing on ideas about eugenics, race, and authenticity. Ideas about morality and technology also colored views of deaf musicality in the United States, shaping the reception of deaf music-making throughout the twentieth century until today. This article tells the story of how deaf music-making came to be forgotten and discovered, again and again, in the U.S. consciousness. By way of conclusion, I suggest that in order to address the epistemic exclusion of deaf musical knowers, we must carefully attend to what deaf epistemologies bring to music studies.
This paper focuses on the identity creation processes of Deaf people in Malaysian society using an intersectionality approach to issues of identity, disability, and Deaf studies. Deaf people belong to a marginalized community and typically experience stereotyped, prejudiced, and stigmatized treatment from the hearing community, which has a serious impact on their social and personal identity development. Without sufficient information about the process of identity creation for Deaf people, the hearing community cannot reduce inequality nor can it increase social integration and stability for the Deaf community. There is a paucity of research about this identity creation process in Malaysia, and few studies have used identity-related theories and Deaf studies to examine the issue. This study uses a constructivist point of view, employing an interpretive phenomenological epistemology in order to construct insightful accounts of participants’ personal and interpersonal experience in mainstream society. The data was analyzed using methods associated with grounded theory and constant comparative analysis in order to reveal the extent to which they identify themselves, that is linguistic minority or PWD. The findings suggest that, on the one hand, mainstream society categorizes Deaf people as Persons with Disabilities rather than as a linguistic minority; on the other hand, without realizing it, Deaf people typically accept society's evaluation by identifying with it and playing the expected roles of PWD.
Dear reader,
Please note this article is published with Brepols Publishers as a Gold Open Access article under a Creative Commons CC 4.0: BY-NC license.
The article is also freely available on the website of Brepols Publishers: https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/J.VIATOR.5.127050 under this same license.
Disability and Deaf studies offer differing yet complementing approaches toward the investigation of deaf and nonspeaking characters in late medieval Icelandic texts. Through these approaches, which focus on the individuals and their lives as well as their ability to communicate with the hearing world, this article shifts its attention to the experiences of these characters rather than any symbolic meanings their literary representation might hold. The article is divided into four main sections, considering prose from the Icelandic sagas and various legal sources. The first focuses on the communicative possibilities that deaf and nonspeaking people had recourse to in their private and public lives. The second examines the participation by deaf and nonspeaking people in the political and legal activities so prominent in medieval Icelandic culture. The third section turns to the race, class and gender considerations of society’s approach toward deaf and nonspeaking people, stressing the issues of gender, class, and race. Lastly, the article considers accounts of people miraculously acquiring and reacquiring speech and hearing through the mediation of saints.
Similarities between developing a deaf identity and a sexual minority identity have been postulated upon the parallel experience of oppressed minority positions. Sign language interviews with eight deaf gay British men explored their intersectional understanding of deaf-gay lived experiences, analyzed through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. During their adolescence deaf gay men sometimes experienced being in a position where they were trying hard to be something they were not: oral and heterosexual for hearing non-signing others (including heterosexual members of their family of origin). Participants spoke of increasingly being drawn toward a welcoming signing cultural world that supported them against deaf minority stress. Coming out as gay presented not only potential family of origin difficulties, but also threatened connection with the deaf community, leaving participants intensely fearful of gay visibility and stigma. Self-fulfillment and community building was sought through positions that ranged from oralist-heteronormativity through to the deaf-gay community. Along the way these journeys included experiences of pride and success alongside those of struggle. Our findings extend research on intersectionality by presenting a distinct set of obstacles, caveats, and nuances to identity conjunction.
Esta investigación aspira a caracterizar etnográficamente las experiencias de lucha de colectivos Sordos de Cali. Puntualmente, las reflexiones que se encuentran en los diferentes capítulos están circunscritas a escenarios en los cuales el significado de la Sordedad está en disputa. Las experiencias y reflexiones aquí reunidas apuntan a explorar y argumentar la sordedad en términos de desigualdad estructural y de diversidad cultural en el marco del multiculturalismo como escenario de reconocimiento de la otredad dentro de la política. Para esto, cada capítulo tiene diferentes escalas de análisis y lo atraviesan de forma transversal tres dimensiones: las prácticas y valores de la sordera como Sordedad; la llamada identidad Sorda en el plano personal y grupal; y finalmente, las acciones y discursos colectivos y políticos de reivindicación. Además, en esta investigación voy a hablar no sólo como antropóloga y socióloga, sino también como mujer hipoacúsica cuyas discusiones aquí reunidas atraviesan mi trayectoria de vida.
https://repository.icesi.edu.co/biblioteca_digital/handle/10906/86866
In Australia, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) seeks to ensure that disabled people can access the support they need to live an independent life. There is limited knowledge around the NDIS client experience of signing deaf people—people who use Auslan as their primary language. This article reports on a pilot study that explored signing deaf people’s experiences when accessing the NDIS to obtain a service package. Signing deaf people were invited to join a focus group and share their experiences. While all participants indicated that their initial contact with the NDIS and its provision of essential information through Auslan was adequate, they believed that access was difficult when they needed more detail. Also, all participants noted that NDIS staff members’ knowledge of signing deaf people’s life experience was an area for development. Overall, signing deaf people’s consumer experience of the NDIS did not appear to meet their expectations.
• Points of interest
• In Australia, signing deaf people can choose to be part of the new support system for disabled people - the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
• Signing deaf people in this study liked the way the NDIS gave them information through their sign language, Auslan, however, when they wanted to get more detailed information - they could not find it.
• NDIS staff could develop their knowledge of signing deaf people’s life experience. Better staff knowledge can improve signing deaf people’s NDIS experience.
• The research shares signing deaf people’s experiences of the NDIS and adds to future research and better knowledge.
This thesis seeks to explore why equality law is not working for Deaf people, and what can be done to ensure that it does. In order to answer this research question, after a consideration of what evidence exists to suggest that Deaf people continue to experience inequalities, an attempt is made to ascertain why the framing of Deaf people as disabled is problematic, giving rise to what is termed the ‘Deaf Legal Dilemma,’ whereby Deaf people are faced with a stark choice: accept the disability label, or have no access to any rights at all. There is then an attempt to determine which concepts of equality are relevant to Deaf people, utilising a specific methodology that allows the author to categorise these concepts into either formal, substantive or transformative equality thus establishing a standard of measurement by which it is possible to determine how effective particular concepts of equality are in eradicating inequality.
A doctrinal analysis of equality law in the UK is then undertaken, incorporating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, the Equality Act 2010 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. These are critiqued in order to establish how they apply or may apply to Deaf people, and how effective they are in addressing their inequalities. The findings of this analysis are that the instruments examined are not effective, and sign language recognition is proposed as a solution. The conclusion reached is that sign language recognition proffers a transformative approach to the Deaf Legal Dilemma and should – at least in the long term - give Deaf people ‘equal and inalienable rights’ on par with hearing people, in full cognisance of their status as Sign Language Peoples.
One of the traditional areas of concern in educational foundations has been philosophy of education, and within philosophy of education, a central focus has been epistemology. Defined as the branch of philosophy dealing with the study of knowledge, in the past half-century approaches to the study of epistemology have evolved in significant ways. The rise of ethnoepistemology is perhaps one of the clearest examples of such changes. After a brief overview of the concept of ethnoepistemology, we argue for the existence of a distinctive deaf epistemology. We then offer a discussion of some of the ways in which this deaf epistemology is reflected in American Sign Language (ASL). The article concludes with a discussion of the ramifications of deaf epistemology for deaf education.
The article delineates a line of development in which special education and the increasing need for it are connected with the gradual institutionalisation of the modern school model in the school system. In a model of this type the teacher must use the limited time available efficiently to attain the set objectives, which means that any interruptions or disturbances jeopardise the possibility of achieving important goals with the time-limit, and diversity among students becomes a problem. In other words, the more modern the school, the stricter the criteria for normality, the finer the evaluation system, the finer the screening used and, as a result, the greater the amount of deviance which must be handled by special measures.
American psychologist Henry H. Goddard's introduction of the Binet test in the United States was hailed by contemporaries as a major advance in diagnostic technique. With it he â–˜discoveredâ–™ the moron, who was believed to suffer from a mild type of mental deficiency that had previously been unidentified. But Goddard had actually grafted his new classification onto an older tradition that was based on social judgments about what constituted normal behaviour. This paper describes the social context of Goddard's discovery along with the assumptions and methods that resulted in his â–˜scientificâ–™ confirmation of the earlier, socially constructed prototype.
In this paper it is argued that a social theory of disability can best be developed through the use of the concept of oppression. This concept is outlined, and special emphasis is placed on the importance of the social origins of impairment in such an analysis. The ways in which this approach would utilise data gathered from other theoretical perspectives is indicated. General features of a theory of disability as oppression are specified.
The discussion analyses Australian national and four State policies from a sociological perspective. It examines these written policies (as distinct from stated and enacted policies, cf. Macdonald, 1981) along a number of dimensions, and theorises the various integrationist positions in these policies, using Demaine's (1981) and Culley & Demaine's (1983) framework. In addition, it comments on other aspects of these policies which have social and sociological significance, including their social control implications.
LANGUAGE, COGNITION, AND THE BRAIN: INSIGHTS FROM SIGN LANGUAGE RESEARCH. Karen Emmorey. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002. Pp. xvii + 383. $99.95 cloth, $49.95 paper.
In the preface, Emmorey states her goal for this book: to illustrate what can be learned about human language, cognition, and the brain by studying signed languages and the deaf people who use them. She clearly achieves that goal in this excellent volume. Her scholarship is impeccable, something we have come to expect from this author. First of all, the organization of the book is impressive. Each chapter explicitly presents specific goals and then proceeds through those goals in an organized and clear style. The conclusion of each chapter includes suggested readings with a brief explanation of how these suggestions support the chapter. Second, this volume includes research on a variety of signed languages—Nicaraguan, Australian, Danish, and Irish, to name a few—and provides a truly comprehensive approach to the topic.
A compilation of data on the hereditary aspects of deafness presented at a conference in 1883 by Alexander Graham Bell, the document contains records of familial occurences of deafness and marriage statistics. Tables indicate that within schools for the deaf many students had the same family name; it was considered highly probable that a considerable proportion of deaf mutes belonged to families containing more than one such person. Of 5,823 deaf mutes from various parts of the county, 29.5% were known to have deaf and dumb relatives. Records from two institutions showed that about one half of the students born before 1840 had married; of 1,089 from five schools who had married, an increased proportion had married other deaf mutes. Indications were found that a hereditary tendency toward deafness, as indicated by the possession of deaf relatives, was a most important element in determining the production of deaf offspring, and that the proportion of deaf mute children born to deaf mutes was many times greater than the proportion born to the people at large. Additional information is provided and includes charts, graphs, and family trees. (RJ).
Excerpted from the biography of Alexander G. Bell (BELL: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude) are portions dealing with Bell's encouragement of oral education for the deaf. (DB)
childhood;deafness;auditory apparatus;infectious disease;educational handicap
Clinical trials of the Clarion multichannel cochlear implant in postlingually deaf adults have been ongoing since 1991, and clinical investigation of the device in children is projected to begin in the first quarter of 1995. The purpose of this paper is to present some of the issues encountered in developing research protocols for clinical trials of cochlear implants in the pediatric population, with special reference to the protocol that will be employed in the Clarion pediatric investigation.
Perceptual skills were evaluated at two intervals of cochlear implant (CI) use in 24 children with prelingual deafness who received the Nucleus multichannel CI. Their performance was compared to that of age-matched children with prelingual profound hearing losses who used conventional hearing aids (HAs). The HA subjects were grouped by unaided thresholds: "gold" subjects (pure tone average of 92 dB hearing level) and "silver" subjects (pure tone average of 104 dB hearing level). The CI users' perceptual abilities increased significantly with time. At the "early" interval (mean, 2 months of CI use), performance of the CI and silver HA groups was similar on measures of phoneme, word, and sentence recognition; the gold HA subjects' performance was superior to that of the other groups. At the "late" interval, (mean, 2.5 years of CI use), CI subjects' performance exceeded that of the silver group on all measures, and was similar to that of the gold group on vowel recognition and auditory-plus-visual sentence recognition measures.
This paper examines ethical issues related to medical practices with children and adults who are members of a linguistic and cultural minority known as the DEAF-WORLD. Members of that culture characteristically have hearing parents and are treated by hearing professionals whose values, particularly concerning language, speech, and hearing, are typically quite different from their own. That disparity has long fueled a debate on several ethical issues, most recently the merits of cochlear implant surgery for DEAF children. We explore whether that surgery would be ethical if implants could deliver close to normal hearing for most implanted children, thereby diminishing the ranks of the DEAF-WORLD. The ethical implications of eugenic practices with the DEAF are explored, as are ethical quandaries in parental surrogacy for DEAF children, and their parallels in transracial adoption.
Deaf People in Hitler's Europe
- S Schuchman
- D Ryan
Schuchman, S,. and D. Ryan, eds. n.d. Deaf People in Hitler's Europe. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. In press.
Returning to the World of Sound
- R Saltus
- July
Saltus, R. . Returning to the World of Sound. Boston Globe, July.