What is “Deafness”?

Deafness, like most things is far from black and white. Hearing impairment differs from person to person and thus there is really a whole spectrum that spans from those who associate themselves as Capital “D” Deaf and have forgone any kind of assistitive hearing aid or Cochlear implant device because they are happy living in a world without sound (at least as most people know it). They are not oral and Sign Language is their primary language and method of communicating, they often goto Deaf-only schools and Colleges and only have Deaf friends. Deaf people have great pride in their unique culture and can be quite protective and rebellious when hearing people try to impose their ways or views upon Deaf culture. Deafness is not viewed as a disability but rather a difference in perspective that the hearing world does not offer.

At the other end of the spectrum you’ll get Hearing Impaired types which may range from a slight or temporary loss of hearing that doesn’t really significantly affect the day-to-day living of that person, they tend to associate within the hearing world and are not familiar with Deaf culture. They may be late-deafened adults who wear hearing aids or people that have been given Cochlear Implants when they were a baby and so have developed an auditory brain and coping mechanisms that rival their hearing peers. They will usually be oral which means they speak and write in English and do not know Sign Language (or whatever is the dominantly spoken language of their country of course). Hearing impaired people typically have some degree of lip-reading skill and often their slight disability is invisible to others except for the occasional missed word or sentence in noisy situations.

In the middle of the spectrum I would put those that are “Hard-of-Hearing” or possibly they associate themselves as a lower-case “d” deaf. These poor guys probably have the biggest challenge to overcome because they may have moderate-to-severe hearing loss but still try to be oral and participate in the hearing world or they may perhaps be a mix of Sign language/Oral and dip in and out of the Deaf world. The Hard-of-Hearing (or HoH) struggle a lot to keep up in the hearing world because speech perception is one of the first things to take its toll when you have severe hearing loss but there is still access to a lot of sound via hearing aids/Cochlear Implants. HoH may or may not associate with the Deaf Community and it often depends on the family background, for example children that are HoH and have hearing parents may not have been raised with Sign language and will have gone to Mainstream schools with the help of note-takers. HoH people can be pretty isolated as they get excluded when it comes to hearing social events and they may find it difficult to communicate with Deaf people as they do not known Sign Language. That said, there have been many cases of HoH & orally raised deaf people that make a transition over to the Deaf community later in life when they start to learn sign language either by meeting the right kind of patient and understanding people or taking lessons on their own initiative, but then there are many that do not and live out a life feeling different and excluded…

Now for those who are still reading, hopefully you’ll have the beginnings of a better picture about what “Deafness” is and indeed how being “Deaf” can differ from being “deaf”… If you’re wondering, I currently feel that my own cultural situation lands somewhere between the “Hoh” and “Hearing” end of the spectrum as I never was taught how to Sign and I have fared pretty well in the Hearing world via lip-reading and contextual prediction of what people are saying.

At camp, there were moments of frustration when I had difficulty with “unlearning” the English order of structuring sentences in favor of ASL’s. For example in spoken and written English a typical sentence may have an Object-Subject-Verb order of phrasing whereas American Sign Language tends toward Subject-Verb-Object. This fact alone meant that even if I knew what all the hand signs meant, I was not easily able to understand if the signer was asking me a question or telling me an answer with in a conversation…

Often-times we ended up just having someone type into my laptop the ASL dialog and then I could read and follow along. This turned out to be the best method at least when the discussion was moving along swiftly and I wouldn’t have been able to keep up if we hadn’t had done this so I am of course very grateful for everyone that took turns in being my interpreter.

Overall Having a solid two-week exposure to the Deaf end of the spectrum has given me a glimpse of what it’s like to not having to strain and struggle to hear conversation and I really enjoyed the fact that I could start relaxing into an easier and more fluid visual method of communication. I feel lucky that I was with a bunch of great and really patient campers that gave me a real cram course in American Sign Language (ASL). I would say that this has been a pivotal moment for me as I really enjoy signing and participating in the deaf community. The question is really whether I can still focus on my own music and personal development and keep investing time into learning ASL and teaching… I think it can be done but may see me dipping in and out of both ends of the spectrum. I’d love to combine both the hearing and deaf worlds into one big moment though and have ideas on how to proceed with this…

Back on topic though, now that we have an understanding of Deafness, we need to next ask.. What is “Music”?

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