Merriam Webster defines “deaf” as:

“Hearing loss is the most prevalent sensory loss in the United States.”

-Losing the Language of Silence, New York Magazine, 2008

According to Schein (1992) prelingual deafness occurs in the general population in about 1 in 1,000 cases.

According to the National Association of the Deaf the number of cases newborns that are deaf or hard of hearing is closer to 2 or 3 in 1,000.

“Prelingual deafness refers to deafness that occurs

prior to the individual’s acquisition of a first language

and includes deafness at birth through 3 years.”

-Signs of Their Times: Deaf Communities and the Culture of Language, 2002

D/d

“We use the lowercase deaf when referring to the

audiological condition of not hearing, and the

uppercase Deaf when referring to a particular group of

deaf people who share a language…the members of

this group have inherited their sign language, use it as a

primary means of communication among themselves,

and hold a set of beliefs about themselves and their

connection to the larger society.”

-Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture, 1988

At about 5 years old, Theophilus H. d’Estrella’s mother died and hewas orphaned:

“My mother must have known my wants beforehand, withoutany forced attempt on my part. But my guardian was a stranger to me, and could not understand my desires. It was necessary that she or I would seek something rational or conventional to make us understand each other. So we made signs one after another. Imitation constitutes the foundation of the sign language. We traced as intelligibly as possible the shapes and pecularities of the objects and the actions of bodily movements.”

-Thought Before Language: A Deaf-Mute’s Recollections, 1892

“If French is the language of lovers and German the

language of commerce, then perhaps sign is the

language of humans connecting. You can’t sign to

someone if you’re standing next to that person. You have

to look full-on at each other--watch each other’s faces and

necks, shoulders and elbows, hips and knees. You have to

stand a bit further back than you do with spoken language

so that you can take in the entirety of the person…”

- Losing the Language of Silence, New York Magazine, 2008

“Since the [1980s] sign languages have become accepted as genuine languages, and the notion of linguistic communities of (deaf) signers is no longer novel.”

-Signs of Their Times: Deaf Communities and the Culture of Language, 2002.

There is no universal form of sign language; it varies in response to different spoken languages and alphabets. Dialects can form within these different sign languages.

Natural Sign Language

Artificial Sign Language

Fingerspelling

American Sign LanguageFingerspelling

ASL Pro Signs for Colors

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/phrases.cgi

Cochlear Implants

Surgically implanted. Bypasses the damaged portion of the ear and

sends signals to stimulate the auditory parts of the brain.

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Sound and Fury (2000)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXNrqKPsac0

This American Life:

First Contact

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/sites/all/play_music/play_full.php?play=411

Ira speakes with Scott Krepel-via his interpreter Marc Holmes-about what happened when Scott got cochlear implants as a kid and could suddenly hear for the first time.

Lesson & Classroom AdaptationsOn some of the difficulties that face deaf students thathave been mainstreamed:

“For a deaf person used to signing, the rhythms of communication are off. In a deaf class, someone points to where one’s attention should fall…If everyone is looking in different directions, how can you know what’s going on?…Even the architecture of a classroom works to the deaf student’s disadvantage; often, filing cabinets are too high for clear sight lines, and desks are arranged so students turn their backs to one

another.” -Losing the Language of Silence, New York Magazine, 2008

References

ASL Pro. http://www.aslpro.com/

Glass, Ira. (2010, ). First Contact. This American Life Podcast. Podcast retrieved from http://www.thisamericanlife.org/sites/all/play_music/play_full.php?play=411

James, W. (1892). Thought before language: A deaf-mute’s recollections. The Philosophical Review, 1(6), 613-624.

Padden, C. & Humphries, T. (1988). Deaf in America: Voices from a culture. Harvard University Press, MA.

Senghas, R. J. & Monaghan, L. (2002). Signs of their times: Deaf communities and the culture of language. Annual Review of Anthropology, 31, 69-97.

The National Association of the Deaf. http://www.nad.org/

Walker, L. A. (2008). Losing the language of silence. New York Magazine. Retrieved from http://nymag.com/guides/mindbody/2008/42822/