Reprinted with permission from Brunswick County Early College High School’s The Firebird Times.
September is National Deaf Awareness Month. Actress Marion Ross is quoted as saying, “The thing about hearing loss is that no one can see it. Most people are so impatient; they just assume that the person with hearing loss is being rude, or slow-witted.” This quote can also be applied to deaf people, as they, too, suffer from a loss that is invisible. However, the loss that profoundly deaf people have is more significant than those who are diagnosed with only some hearing impairment. In my opinion, the second portion of this quote is the unfortunate reality of how a lot of people treat those who are hard of hearing or deaf. That is why deafness has an awareness month, in my belief. It is not necessarily to celebrate people who suffer from deafness, but rather to inform the public that just because a person is differently-enabled and suffers from an invisible disability, does not mean that one should assume that they are, dumb, or stupid, or as the quote says, slow-witted. They are just different…we all are just different. We all learn differently, speak differently, and have different interests. That’s what makes a society. So, just because a person might not be able to hear well, might have a speech impediment, or might wear a cochlear implant or a hearing aid does not mean that one should assume less of them.
Throughout my life, I have witnessed firsthand the myths that society has about people who are hard of hearing or deaf. Even though I am not deaf and have good residual hearing, I was born with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, and I wear assistive technology in the form of a hearing aid. However, I have been told numerous times that if you had a conversation with me, that you may have not even realized that I have a hearing impairment. That alone shows that, because I suffer from a disability that is invisible, you do not have to treat me differently or like I am less than. The reason that you might not notice my hearing loss is due to my parent’s belief in early intervention. I am very fortunate to live in a state that has provided me with resources to get to where I am today. One of these early intervention resources was speech therapy. I went to speech therapy from three months to three years of age. I went to speech therapy before I could even talk. But, the use of speech therapy at that age was not to help me to speak, but rather to help me understand what other people were saying. This helped me to better be able to use my “context clues” in real life situations when I could not hear what was said. In the world of audiology, which is the study of hearing, these “context clues” are what is known as an SII level, or a Speech Intelligence Index. Again, this allows me to understand what someone has said, even if there were certain sounds that I did not hear.
I have a unique kind of hearing loss that is known as a “cookie bite” loss, which means I can hear really well at high frequencies and low frequencies, but I drop off in the middle frequencies and with softer sounds. As an example, when I was little, I did not and sometimes still cannot hear the “th” in the word bath. While that is not the only sound that I struggle to hear, it is one example of a certain sound in what is legitimately called the “speech banana” that is often not clearly audible to me. Other examples are certain ling sounds, such as “s” and “sh” that I do not always hear, particularly if they are at the end of a word.
My educational journey has not always been easy, as when I first began attending preschool up to even my last year of middle school, I have been made fun of due to my hearing loss. When I was little, children would come up behind me and yell for no reason, asking whether or not I could hear them. Even last year, my schoolmates would assume that I couldn’t always understand certain things because I wear a hearing aid. All of this teasing and assuming is not necessary. One should not treat another any less than, even if they are differently-enabled. Everyone should be given the chance to prove themselves before it is assumed that they cannot do something. Overall, the way that people treat those who are deaf or hard of hearing is why deafness has an awareness month. So, as someone who is hard of hearing, I wish all readers of this article a Happy Deaf Awareness Month!