When I see and read all manner of survival books, magazines, online articles, I’ve noticed a major issue important to me that is never talked about at all, for the most part. What is this issue? In any survival situation how do the healthy, hale members of any society or culture communicate treat and work with our handicapped people/family members? For this article, I will concentrate on the deaf/hard-of-hearing citizens of our own country.
As a being profoundly deaf man since the age of four, I have experienced numerous good and bad situations throughout my life. Sometimes the situations were truly laughingly funny, other times would be really disgustingly bigoted or idiotic. Historically speaking, every culture that has arisen on the average does not look upon its handicapped members with beneficial eyes due to the perception that such people are less capable of work, of thinking, need more help or time to teach them that could be used to better effort elsewhere.
Since the 1880s, American society in general is one that has consistently on the average looked at and treated deaf people as having little to contribute to society at large. Why is that? Communication is the reason, our entire world is based upon, every tool and technology created came about because humans by sound, our voices, the words we pronounce as we speak. We speak what we hear, it takes very little time to say papa correctly when a baby hears its parents or adults gently correct the child’s pronouncing the word. As we grow up, we are constantly learning the proper rules of grammar and speech (word) pronunciation.
What about the deaf or the hard-of-hearing people? When anyone loses the ability to hear the spoken words, how can they say words correctly, learn the correct rules of English grammar when they simply cannot hear the voiced sounds. Do you try to force them to speak (orally) so that they can fit into a society dependent upon sound or would you be willing to learn another language that truly benefits them and adds another important skill to your list of abilities important to surviving? It has been true for a very long time that when hearing members of our society hear deaf/hard-of-hearing people unable to correctly say words spoken to them, they are then seen as less capable, less smart, less dependable, it is seen as so much easier to ignore them, to not hire them, their capabilities and skills in favor of people who can hear and understand the spoken sounds of speech.Continue reading“Sign Language as a Survival Skill, by B.R.”
