The deaf can do anything except hear well. :)
Leni Hall boxed four rounds at 4th and B last night and never heard the bell, nor will she ever hear one. Hall, of Encinitas, is deaf. On a less-than-stellar card offered by Florida-based All Star Boxing Inc., Hall, making her first professional appearance at the age of 30, represented what arguably was the evening’s most interesting study.
I have heard of OSX hacking, Windows hacking, Linux hacking and Photoshop hacking.
Hacking, in the good sense of making changes to make the device or software work faster and better.
But hearing aid hacking?!
Yup, there is such a thing. Here it is, for HA users, by HA users - tips, tricks and magic potions to optimise the use of your HAs.
All sorts of wonderous stuff awaits! Use bluetooth with your HA. Use DAI for direct audio input from teevees and MP3 players. Rechargers for HAs. And more. Wow!
browneyed girl’s posts are always engaging, entertaining and.. well, she is well-informed and simply writes well. I like her essays. :)
Her post on cochlear implants is an example.
While a CI child may never be exposed to deaf culture when he’s younger, I would not point the finger at CI in this case; plenty of deaf children are kept isolated from deaf culture that never had CI’s (I am but one of many, many examples). The real issue is that 90% of deaf children have hearing parents. Such parents probably have no idea of deafness at all, have never dealt with anyone deaf until their own child. Parents do want the best for their children, but out of ignorance and well meaning determinations for their child to be as "normal" as possible.
Read on…
Check out her blog too:
What’s that you said?
On the impact of CIs on Deaf culture.
One thing this article conveys, and which is very important - more so than the CI vs Deaf Culture debate - is the need to implant early.. very early, before age of one, to maximise chances of success.
Could the end of sign language for deaf children be in sight? A spate of new studies has shown that profoundly deaf babies who receive cochlear implants in their first year of life develop language and speech skills remarkably close to those of hearing children. Many of the children even learn to sing passably well and function almost flawlessly in the hearing world.
Very nice website. It even has an online store selling handicrafts. This statement on the FAQ page says it all:
Helping The Deaf in the Gaza Strip… Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children is a Palestinian NGO which has been working in the field of deaf education and allied services since 1992. Literally thousands of deaf and hearing impaired persons and their families are served annually at Atfaluna through deaf education, audiology, speech language pathology, vocational training and better parenting programs. The Society regularly offers teachers’ training in deaf education and provides community awareness and hearing screening programs.
This article is an old one, written and published way back in 1994 by the New York Times. I had read it a few years ago, and came across it again recently.
Still as relevant, still as thought-provoking and still a tinderbox to spark debate.
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.
Religion and religious rights (and wrongs and slights) are very sensitive grounds. But to steer clear of them is to take the cowardly way out, and to engage in constructive, rational and intelligent debate and discussion with regard to such issues makes for a better world.
Of course, it needs sensitive, understanding and reasonable people in the discusssion to take things work.
My personal stance: I support the right of Muslim women to wear the tudang (as the headscarf is called here in Singapore). Veils? A tougher issue to take a stand on. As always, there are absolutes and there are exceptions, and I say there are specific cases where veils - which cover the face - can be cause for concern. For purposes of identification, for example, especially so when it comes to security considerations. However, there should no discrimmination in all other situations, as when security is not a issue.
Having watched numerous news reports regarding Muslim women claiming they are fully approachable and able to fully communicate whilst wearing the veil, I would like to dispute this, as quite obviously they must only be referring to those with exceptional hearing. Therefore are the Muslim community deliberately constructing barriers?
Even Ridor?
The bugbear of deaf job seekers everywhere - the issue of being an "independent worker", defined as being able to handle phone calls / voice mails, and which defines a deaf person as unsuitable for the vast majority of jobs.
I have experienced this so often. At least, in America, they have legistlation on their side. Here? It’s not the government’s business. It’s business’ business.
“You will get the voice mails and recording machines from hearing individuals, how do you plan to retrieve it?”
How true, so true.
And how sad.
From the time deaf and hard of hearing children are young, they are told that it is a "hearing" world. And it is hearing people who do most of the hiring in the working world when deaf and hard of hearing people search for jobs.
Now, now. This site hasn’t suddenly gone smutty (always wanted to use this word, and now comes the chance!).
It’s on - a little bit - about Deaf artist Matt Daigle winning a national (American) contest to design a logo/symbol for breast-feeding, and - a lot - about the rights of nursing mothers to breast-feed in public.
I support the cause, by the way.
It’s crazy that celebrities who are practically undressed are allowed to grace our teevee screens, while people frown upon mothers feeding their babies in public. So what if they feed them milk from their breasts? Get over it, oh self-righteous prudes!
Have a look at the winning logo and the article.
Read on…Hiatus over! (I hope!)
A deaf blogger’s experience of going from analog to digital aids, as what I did over the past 2 years for both my ears.
Another I-can-so-relate post!
I read the blogs by people who just got cochlear implants, and much of what they’ll write about is hearing this sound or understanding that. One of them described how she could hear the sound of scotch tape being ripped off the dispenser by someone else in the room. I can hear that kind of thing with a good pair of HA, but I just find it annoying. I really don’t care about noises in general; for me sound is strictly functional — I want to hear what people are saying. Most other noises simply irritate me. That’s why I don’t wear them much when no one else is around or when I’m just walking around by myself.
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