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Lessons from the Neighborhood

BEFORE I dive into what the Solitary Mainstream Project participants had to say in retrospect, I would first like to share some explorations and ruminations about our world—the world in which we found ourselves in the last half of the twentieth century. When I speak of “our world,” I am referring not so much to a world devoid of sound or a world with sound that sounds funny. Rather I am referring to the world of people surrounding us, people who have beliefs and attitudes about children and adults who are deaf or hard of hearing. A world where all children receive messages about their own position and status in the larger world, deaf and hard of hearing children being no exception. To most readers, this world is just the world. It’s round and has countries, trees, flowers, cars, buildings, and people. Most readers, unless they are deaf or hard of hearing, will have a hard time imagining a world that looks, sounds, and feels different. From one perspective, I lived in the same world that my hearing siblings did. But that world looked, sounded, and felt different to me. I would challenge the nondeaf reader to try to view this world as it looks, sounds, and feels to the deaf or hard of hearing child, in order to understand how this world becomes a lonely place in which to be. The world of the deaf or hard of hearing child also has countries, trees, flowers, cars, and buildings. But the people, to us, are perplexing. They move their mouths a lot. That’s called “talking.” They do this “talking” all the time unless they are asleep. This talking involves making sound, but the sound that comes out, if we hear it, just sounds like gibberish. The more we grow and the more we become aware that this “talking” is what binds people together, the more we feel left out—we are not a part of that world. We can be systematically taught what these sounds mean—but spoken language doesn’t become infused in us like it does in our hearing siblings and peers. It’s not because our brains are defective, it’s because our hearing mechanism is defective. We can nevertheless become fluent in a spoken or written language with patient and loving teaching. But we will probably always feel, in some or many situations, that we are not fully a part of that “talking world.”

Ways of thinking about deaf and hard of hearing people can come from actual encounters, from media portrayals, from what you overhear your mother saying about some kid, or from a variety of indirect information sources. I think it is valuable to explore what we learn about deaf people, through little effort of our own, in our very own neighborhoods.

During my senior year of college—my first year at Gallaudet—my childhood friend, Mary Ellen, was considering moving to DC and came to visit me. We were both twenty years old. We had grown up across the street from each other, sharing kickball games, chats about boys, lots of high school dances, and many other experiences. I will never forget that after a short time on campus, she looked at me very solemnly and said, “Gina, you don’t belong here.”

My childhood friend didn’t think of me as deaf. In her mind, deaf people like those she saw around her at Gallaudet, and me, Gina, were not alike. For some reason, she thought of me as different from them, somehow better than them. I feel fairly certain that she had never read a book about deaf people, had never met a deaf person other than me, and had not learned about deaf people in school. Yet, she had some very firm ideas about the students she saw at Gallaudet. What were these ideas she had? What had influenced her thinking? Why did she think of deaf people as so lacking? Obviously, she did not learn about deaf people from history books or the Internet. And there were no deaf people on television at that time.

Lessons from Elementary School Classrooms in the Late Twentieth Century

While we don’t have research to tell us how my contemporaries (such as Mary Ellen) viewed deaf and hard of hearing children, we do have research from more recent years. This research helps us to see what societal messages hearing children are receiving about their deaf and hard of hearing classmates.

Ramsey, the classroom observer described earlier, witnessed the hearing children using their limited signed language vocabulary to interact with the deaf boys in limited and sometimes demeaning ways. The introduction discusses an example of what she labeled “directives and hints.” Ramsey labeled another category of interaction as “evaluations.” The hearing children would sometimes sign GOOD to a deaf classmate, even when the deaf classmate was not looking at them. The interactions between her deaf participants and their hearing classmates was limited to instrumental communication, for example, questions and answers about schoolwork or expectations, with deaf children doing the asking and the hearing children doing the answering.¹ It seems safe to conclude that the hearing children somehow received the message that “the way to interact with deaf and hard of hearing people is to tell them what to do.”

Children’s perception of how significant others view them is critical to the development of their self-esteem. Scholars have long considered the concept of self to be developed through interactions with others. As children interact with adults and with other children, they learn how these adults and children view them, and they internalize the perceptions of others about themselves.²

Sociometrics explores how children rate their classmates and peers by asking them to respond to statements such as “name three classmates you really like and three classmates you do not.” The resulting analysis helps to differentiate four general groups of children: popular children, rejected children, neglected children, and controversial children. Popular children are those who are frequently placed in the “popular” category—many children like them. Rejected children are those who are actively disliked by many children. Neglected children are like rejected children in that they lack friends but are not actively disliked. Finally, controversial children have some peers who actively like them and some who actively dislike them. It has been found that ratings are relatively stable over time (e.g., children found to be popular or rejected in their early years generally remain so for their entire school experience). Further, various studies have shown that children found to be rejected or neglected are at a higher risk for social and psychiatric problems in adolescence and adulthood.³

Michelle Yetman conducted a sociometric study that speaks volumes about how hearing children view their deaf and hard of hearing classmates.⁴ Yetman’s study of mainstreamed deaf and hard of hearing children showed that 75 percent of these children were in the neglected category and none were in the popular category.⁵

Using another measure of self-esteem, Yetman found that the deaf and hard of hearing children had significantly lower self-esteem in three out of five areas: academic competence, social competence, and behavioral conduct.⁶ They expressed dissatisfaction with their academic achievements and with their ability to make friends. Her analysis revealed that the more hours per week that deaf and hard of hearing children spent in direct contact with hearing children (i.e., the more time deaf and hard of hearing children spent in regular classes as opposed to special education classes), the lower their self-esteem score. This finding demonstrates a phenomenon known as the “referent group.” Children (and adults) compare themselves to a referent group. The more time deaf children spent with hearing children, the more likely they were to compare themselves to their hearing peers. However, deaf children who used their deaf and hard of hearing peers as a referent group had higher levels of self-esteem.

It seems logical to think that children with less severe deafness would be better able to succeed in the regular school environment. After all, they are “just hard of hearing.” Yetman’s study does not support that supposition—more than half of the students in Yetman’s study could be classified as hard of hearing (60 percent had mild to moderately severe deafness). The results demonstrated that the children’s degree of deafness had no significant impact on their sociometric standing or their self-esteem. Even children classified as “only” hard of hearing can be rejected by their hearing classmates and thus suffer.

My childhood friend Mary Ellen holds one of Dad’s artworks.

Yetman also administered questionnaires to the teachers of forty-one deaf students. She found that teachers consistently rated deaf and hard of hearing students as less competent than the hearing students in all tested areas. This is a sad fact considering that she did her study in the last few years of the twentieth century, almost twenty-five years after the passage of PL 94–142.

Lessons from Hearing Children Born to Deaf Parents

Families where one or both parents are culturally Deaf have borne hearing children throughout the ages.⁷ These hearing children, known as Codas (children of deaf adults), can tell us some important things about how people who can hear have looked at people who cannot. In books and articles by these Codas, they provide evidence that a negative view of deaf people has been passed down from generation to generation.

The majority of children born to Deaf parents are, in fact, hearing. Many of these children grow up to call themselves Codas and actively participate in a growing national organization formed to support the common history and goals of these unique individuals.⁸ Perhaps, more than anyone, these individuals understand both worlds: Deaf and hearing.

Not only have Codas organized themselves and reached out to others like themselves, but they have also written books about their experiences. The following excerpt from Paul Preston’s Mother Father Deaf demonstrates how hearing children in public schools probably think about their deaf and hard of hearing classmates.

My grandparents still don’t sign. My grandfather’s passed away, never knowing how to sign. My grandmother’s still alive, and the only way they [my grandmother and my father] communicate is passing notes. And I kind of look down on that, and plus the way she [grandmother] talks to us. My father still doesn’t know how she talks to us. She’ll say, “It’s really amazing how your father’s kept a job, and has a house and raised fine kids.” And I’m thinking, why are you so shocked? I can’t understand why they’re so shocked. To me they’re just as normal as anybody else. But even their own parents look at them and think it’s a big deal if they can drive or walk down the street.⁹

Thus, a family with deaf members frequently has what Codas call the sandwich phenomena, which occurs when (1) the grandparents can hear; (2) the parents are deaf or hard of hearing; (3) the next generation, the Coda himself, can hear; (4) the Coda learns signed language, often as a first language, because their parents use signed language as the primary language in the home; and (5) the grandparents never learn to sign. Mother Father Deaf and Lou Ann Walker’s A Loss for Words are just two of several books published in recent years by hearing people who grew up surrounded by deaf and hard of hearing people.

The deaf relatives would sit in the living room, eating on TV trays. And the hearing relatives would be in the dining room. And every now and then someone from one room would get up and go into the other room and look around and nod and smile. Then they’d come back and sit down. Who knows what they were doing. Maybe they wanted to make sure everybody was still alive.¹⁰

These hearing children were often asked and expected to serve as go-betweens between their parents and their grandparents. As many Codas grew up, they learned ways to extract themselves from this role and allow hearing grandparents, as well as other family members, to live with the consequences of their decisions to not learn to sign. In their own way, Codas who do learn sign find ways to send the message to their nonsigning grandparents that they love and accept their Deaf parents, and that they even feel grateful that because of these parents, they know two languages and have been privileged to be part of the Deaf community.

One young Coda woman painfully witnessed the attitudinal difference between her paternal grandparents (who were deaf) and her maternal grandparents (who were hearing) and how the beliefs of the latter caused great pain to the family. When the Coda’s mother became pregnant with her, the maternal grandparents were appalled because they had tried to dissuade their daughter from having children, fearing that, God forbid, the child might be deaf. When the baby was born and found to be hearing, the maternal grandparents were elated. As the girl grew up, her maternal grandmother would tell her frequently that the grandmother’s beautiful diamond wedding ring would someday be hers. It was obvious to this girl, even at a very young age, that the grandmother was skipping a generation in her planned bequeathal. The wedding ring would go directly to the hearing granddaughter, skipping over the Deaf daughter.

When the grandmother died, an uncle handed an envelope containing the precious ring to the young Coda woman. The young woman, however, refused to take part in this discriminating scenario. She said to her uncle, “Please take this ring. Give it to my mother.”¹¹

These stories profoundly demonstrate the ideas that many contemporary Americans have about deaf individuals within their own families. In the following excerpt, Lou Ann Walker offers further information about how neighbors viewed her Deaf parents, as evidenced by stares or overheard comments that became part of their shared experience.

I could never bring myself to tell Mom and Dad about the garage mechanic who refused to serve them because they were deaf, or the kids at school who made obscene gestures mocking our sign language. Not once did I convey the questions asked literally hundreds of times: “Does your father have a job?” “Are they allowed to drive?” Those questions carried an implicit insult to families such as ours, which was proud and hard-working and self-sufficient.¹²

Preston’s informants expressed concern that readers would feel that any problems in a family with Deaf parents would be caused because the parents were deaf. In other words, they were painfully aware of an apparently pervasive disdain held by others toward their Deaf parents.

You think I’d tell anyone that there were problems? Can you imagine what they would say? “Oh, it must be because your parents are deaf.” It doesn’t matter that other families have problems too. What family doesn’t have problems? But if my family had problems, then it’s all because my parents are deaf.¹³

The hearing children of Deaf parents are privy, on a daily basis, to comments made about deaf people. Hearing people make remarks in the proximity of deaf people assuming no one will hear. Little do they know that the ten-year-old who they think is deaf like her parents is really a hearing sponge who soaks up their comments. What’s more, this ten-year-old takes the remarks to heart because she has a natural loyalty and profound understanding of both the strengths and vulnerabilities of her parents.

Many Codas feel that deafness itself is not a problem—the problem stems from how people who can hear view and react to deaf individuals. Preston’s sources spent much of their childhood explaining to hearing people about deafness, and they lamented that they would often tire of “explaining about” their experiences as Codas to people who were clueless about what being a Coda meant or about what deafness meant.

Codas who reported these incidents came from all over the United States and a few other countries. This is compelling anecdotal evidence that most people know very little about the strengths of deaf people and thus will not have the insight necessary to optimally support the young solitaires they may find in their midst.

The role of informing the hearing world of the plight of deaf individuals continues for many Codas into adulthood. A significant number become signed language interpreters. It is generally accepted within the Deaf community that Coda interpreters are often the best interpreters because they are often truly bilingual—fluent in both English and ASL. In addition, they have an understanding of the culture and the nuances of communication between Deaf and hearing people, and they have a naturally acquired skill at facilitating such communication.

Lessons from Sign Language Interpreters

Some of today’s solitary mainstreamed children have sign language interpreters in their schools. Coda interpreters who work in educational settings have a unique insight because they have been exposed to many Deaf individuals, have even known them as family members, and are keenly aware that Deaf people are capable of far more than what many teachers might expect from a deaf or hard of hearing child in a public school. The following quote is from a Coda who worked as an interpreter in a public school:

It’s a few minutes before the class will start. Everyone’s fishing notebooks from knapsacks and sharpening pencils, and it’s all “What did you put for the last answer on the algebra?” and “Tomorrow’s the last day for yearbook money, right?” and “If we want to stay for the game, Toni says she can give us a ride.” All of the eleventh-graders are speaking or listening, directly or indirectly. Except for one student, sitting down front. She is neither speaking nor listening; she is not involved; she is deaf.

I am her sign language interpreter. I stand at the front of the class, poised to begin signing whenever she looks at me, but she doesn’t; she is resting her eyes on the sky outside the window. When at last she does turn her face, it is not to see what her classmates are saying but to chat with me about her weekend, about the book I am reading, about her dog, my sweater, anything. She is hungry for communication and chooses me—an adult satellite paid to follow her through the school day—rather than her peers, who do not speak her language.

Class begins. She pays attention for a while. Sometimes when the teacher asks a question, she signs a response, which I interpret into spoken English—always a little late, just a few seconds after the other students. Sometimes the students will talk at once; their voices overlap and I have to choose one thread to follow, or compress them all in a quick synopsis, inserting who said which thing to whom and in what tone of voice.¹⁴

Of utmost importance are the questions: Is an interpreted education an appropriate education? Is it an adequate education? An equal education? Perhaps most importantly, if a parent or teacher could really fathom the world of a child receiving an interpreted education, would that parent or teacher view such an education as satisfactory and acceptable?

Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are still a judgment call, and the call to judgment falls on the parents of deaf children. Parents quickly become aware of hearing people’s general ignorance about the shared experiences and needs of deaf and hard of hearing children and their families. They become aware that they too are alone in their quandary.

Lessons from Parents with Grown Deaf Children

Susan Gregory, Juliet Bishop, and Lesley Sheldon conducted a noteworthy longitudinal study of British deaf and hard of hearing children and their parents. They interviewed the parents when the children were young and then interviewed them again eighteen years later. Upon looking back on their years raising their children, who were now young adults, many parents decried the lack of information they had during their child’s school years. This is expressed most poignantly in the words of one mother:

I could never see the light at the end of the tunnel. I could never see [deaf daughter] developing into the person she is today. I felt she would be always and forever needing help, which she doesn’t. … People are not quite sure what to do about her. It’s not that they mean to be that way, they just don’t know how to go on. The truth of the matter is that there is not enough known about deafness.¹⁵

Lessons from Those Who Lose Their Hearing in Adulthood

For a final source of evidence of the pervasive ignorance about deaf people among the hearing population, we can explore the writings of people who lose their hearing in adulthood. These are people who suddenly find themselves facing deafness, knowing nothing about it, and being suddenly thrust face to face with previously unfathomable discrimination.

The following excerpt, from R. H. Smith’s The Case about Amy, describes a late-deafened adult’s experiences upon losing his hearing.

It was a jolt to Chatoff to discover his new status and to realize what it meant. In the eyes of others, he was “handicapped,” and this meant that people had begun to view him in terms of his disability, rather than his abilities. He found that, for most people, to know that someone was “deaf” was to know all it was necessary to know about that person. He could feel people shrink discreetly away from him. He asked himself if he had held that attitude himself before becoming deaf and he remembered his discomfiture at the deaf people signing in the restaurant.¹⁶

The term late deafened is usually reserved for individuals such as Chatoff, the man referred to in the previous quote.¹⁷ Several other people have written books about their experiences of becoming deaf in their adult years. Often, the first thing that late-deafened people become aware of is that hearing people in general have neither the patience for nor knowledge of the unique needs of an individual who is deaf or hard of hearing.

In this chapter, I have tried to illustrate what may be the crux of the issues that young solitaires face today. According to the hearing children of Deaf parents, according to the hearing parents of deaf and hard of hearing children, and according to hearing people who find themselves suddenly deafened, hearing people generally don’t know much about deafness. Further, a noticeable number of hearing people appear to harbor unflattering opinions about this most misunderstood of all human predicaments.

How does this lack of understanding manifest itself in our elementary, middle, and secondary schools? How does it impact peer relationships and specifically how deaf and hard of hearing children are viewed by their hearing peers? How does it affect the lives of young solitaires? Who better to ask than the adults who were once those children?