Hearing Researchers: Why Do They Study Deaf People?
Vlog Summary: Opening a dialogue in the Deaf community, Candace A. McCullough brings up several complex issues related to hearing researchers studying Deaf people (9:31 minutes). Whenever a member of a majority group studies a minority group, it is essential that social, cultural, and political issues are considered. Unfortunately, a number of hearing researchers’ motivation for studying Deaf people comes down to self-interest, in the form of university tenure, promotions, grants, and prestige, rather than a sincere interest and concern for the betterment of the Deaf community.
In order to ensure that research on Deaf people is conducted in the best possible manner, hearing researchers should make a conscientious practice of collaborating equally with Deaf researchers in all phases of their studies, with credit given equally to the Deaf and hearing researchers. Deaf people should be cautious about participating in research, taking care to ask questions and determine what, if any, benefits the study may provide to the Deaf community, before committing to be part of a study.
To cite:
McCullough, C. (2007, September 23). Hearing Researchers: Why Do They Study Deaf People? ASC on the Couch. Retrieved September 23, 2007, from http://www.ascdeaf.com/blog/?p=323
Posted by ASCDEAF under Audism, Deaf Issues, Research, Videos on |
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:19 pm
very important topic to discourse. As you may know, I have been involved with quite a few Deaf-related research projects both as a subject and as paid staff most of my life. What you said is something every academic person/researcher that deals with Deaf people and Sign Language MUST take in serious consideration..AND every Deaf subject that is being studied MUST be aware of. I look forward to more discussion on this subject. Thanks, Candace.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:28 pm
It was in the early 1970s when I first deeply resented hearing professionals’ and hearing doctorate candidates’ using minorities for their research for tenure, merit increase, money, fame! I can spell out their names herein, but, because of Google, I have chosen not to do so. However, I can tell you about the most-talked-about book: “BELL’S CURVE” (1990s). I so despised the book that the names of its two authors escape me. This book made political conservatives, the government, and educators so unbelievably excited. The authors excessively negated about black people’s genetical uneducableness. Fortunately, the liberal sceptics at Princeton and Columbia Universities, who read the book with intelligence and judgment, made the authors’ fuse of fame shorter not only by criticising their work in news magazines and scholarly journals but they also claimed that the book was completely fraudulent! Meaning? The authors used black people for money.
I also resent deeply that hearing researchers compare deaf students’ writing samples with those of hearing students. They would make a false conclusion that hearing students write better than deaf students. Hearing students are basically monolingual (one language) whereas deaf people are bilingual (two languages [ASL and English]).
Anything like encyclopedia, compendium history of the deaf should be written by the deaf, not by the hearing. Gallaudet’s English Department has failed — or withheld — to instruct students how to write a letter of grant for research in Europe. I do hope that Gallaudet students as well as deaf people in general will share information NOT with hearing researchers but with deaf researchers. Deaf people know one another much better than hearing researchers know about deaf people.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Candace, I appreciate this vlog very much. It was very educational for me. You provided me several insights (researcher bias, within-group rather than comparison-group studies, etc.) to re-consider. I am wary of the genetic studies too and am glad to know I’m not alone that such data can be manipulated for the purposes of, for e.g., genetic engineering. Thanks for doing this in this time and age.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:35 pm
This is one excellent vlog and points well noted. Thank you, Candace, for taking the initiative to present concerns related to studying deaf people in research. I wholeheartedly agree on the issues that you have addressed thus far.
In particular, I would like to expand on the issue about the need for within-group research with deaf people rather than between deaf and hearing groups. As we already know, deaf people within our community are diverse, and researchers naively comparing hearing with deaf populations ignore this diversity. This results in inappropriate generalization of results to deaf people as a group rather than subgroup. More studies are needed to understand the nuances within the deaf population and to clarify external factors that are contributing to the delays in this and that area.
I still see psychological reports and listserv posts by clinical providers who state that deaf people’s language delays are “due to
hearing loss or deafness.” This information likely came from naïve researchers who compared affected deaf people with hearing people.
Instead, the information should be appropriately rephrased as “language delays due to deprivation of language or communication
access during the early years.”
A within-group deaf study is an excellent method to clarify underlying factors (e.g. quality of parent-child communication; age of language acquisition) that are contributing to language delays. This approach was used by the Yoshinana-Itano group at UC Boulder but only in the late 1990s. Their papers were influential on improving the early intervention services in Colorado, as well as other states.
We need more studies like Yoshinaga-Itano and colleagues’ that can have a positive impact on changing policy in education or clinical practice with deaf people. I am happy to share that I am currently preparing two papers from a study on age of language acquisition, bilingualism, and selective attention in deaf people. I conducted these studies with two goals: one is to push for an increase in early intervention services during the deaf child’s infancy months, and second to advocate for bilingual education for all deaf children – whether it is ASL and English or Spanish and English. Now is the time for grant-funded research conducted with deaf people to be “translate-able” into practice in education, psychology, and community with benefits for deaf people.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:24 am
Yes they need to be studied as to why the deaf community raises a big stink when a hearing actor plays the role of a deaf character whilst the wheelchair community communniy don’t ever bother to do the same when an able bodied actor plays the role of a wheelchair bound character. Hearing people needs to take a hard look at this kind of mentality of the deaf community.
September 24th, 2007 at 4:15 am
Good morning, Doctor McCullough!
WOW, I completely agreed with your very interesting points! Yeah right on we, the Deaf community must think twice and need more steel fort security and protection before we may drown in the deep ocean of hearing researchers!
September 24th, 2007 at 4:17 am
You are very brilliant lady keep it up
September 24th, 2007 at 4:18 am
yeah need to stop them passing out the wrong informations, man thats really silly of them to do this way GOSH
September 24th, 2007 at 4:48 am
Good points as always. By participating in studies done by hearing people, we are giving jobs to them. We need to give jobs back to deaf people. let’s do another protest and refuse all hearing studies and see what happens. Hearing people will freak out. I am tired of some hearing people who say they are special because they have deaf spouses or because they have deaf parents but they are still hearing and have not experienced deaf people’s lives. We need to watch out for those kind of hearing people, too. They think they can speak for us.
September 24th, 2007 at 5:54 am
University of Rochester (not RIT, not NTID… another college in Rochester, NY) has a group of deaf researchers studying the brains of deaf people (taking Xrays to see where the lights show up in which part of brains when they see sign language.) So the department knows that deaf researchers are needed, as well as deaf subjects.
It is good to have some peers… same goes for juries (must have similiar backgrounds to the accused, or otherwise the rendering of decisions would be biased… which often happens anyway.)
September 24th, 2007 at 6:17 am
Karen
You must be talking about this link:
http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/daphne/members.html
Like Candace says, it is hard to tell which researchers are deaf/hearing and researchers need to identify themselves. To my knowledge, Peter Hauser is probably the only deaf person in there. Anyone, please correct me. I am glad Peter is there and we still need MORE deaf people on the team.
JD
September 24th, 2007 at 7:35 am
BRAVA! nice earthquake there, Candace!
this is a movement. this is happening in other underrepresented communities as well. indigenous researchers are rallying for research done by their people (instead of outsiders such as white people). here are some examples of their work from an article myself, another deaf researcher and a hearing researcher recently submitted to a research journal:
many arguments for culturally sensitive research ethics for specific communities are already under way, e.g. Mãori (Cram, Ormond & Carter, 2004), African Botswana Community (Chilisa, 2005), Canadian Natives (Mi’kmaq College Institute, 2006), Australasians (Australasian Evaluation Society, Inc., 2006), Indigenous Communities (Osborne & McPhee, 2000), and Navajo People (Brugge & Missaghian, 2003).
the funny thing about all this was, we originally submitted this article to a prominent deaf journal in deaf academics and was asked to tone it down because it was “too pro-Deaf”.
here’s a quote from one reviewer about our article: “I was turned off by the frequent and lengthy quotes and descriptions of how horrible hearing researchers (or hearing people in general) are”. we were asked to revise and leave out those parts in our article - a reviewer said, “…must Myklebust’s sins of the early 1960s and Lane’s somewhat dramatic portrayals of audism be so repeatedly beat over the reader’s head?”
that was an interesting reaction to our article, considering that all we discussed (in fact, quoted from other researchers/writers) was the history of research by hearing people of/in/about deaf communities - and considering we had a prominent hearing researcher writing this article with two other deaf authors including myself. they asked that we tone it down for publication, and after two more revisions cutting out the important historical information about hearing research on deaf subjects, we were yet rejected….
we are now submitting this with another prominent deaf journal. crossing fingers. deaf researchers can now take the reins when it comes to research, but we have to do something about the publishers- and who reviews the research, in other words, the GATEKEEPERS of academic publications.
that’s why Deaf Studies Digital Journal (DSDJ) is very exciting for me as a deaf researcher - they have yet to get this off the ground though, but when they do, that’ll be a nice rebalancing of power - from academic English gatekeepers - to academic ASL gatekeepers…
September 24th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Hi, yup…
Two years ago this group contacted me to ask if they could work with my son who was 8 years old at that time, for their project. That is how I learned about the group. The tester was deaf herself (I can’t remember her name… her photo is not on the website), and she was a graduate student.
:o) Karen
September 24th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Yes, I agree that is what happen to the number of Deaf persons who got PHD degrees, for example many of Deaf professors at Gallaudet University or CSUN they do not write any books. That really hurt our Deaf community in a long run. From what I see this vlog is really appreciated to bring up that serious consideration about that issues! Hearies researchers never really understand us as a group of people unless they must experience us first, I do believe that each Deaf person who gets PHD ought to write a book about us. That person might give the right information based on fact finding, but unfortunately there always been in restricted or limited to ourselves, I loathe! Candace is right about that! The big problem is closed society what we do in our daily life often do not share the experience with outside due to mistrust very deep! I have to deal with number of misconception about us in many ways! Misinformation is great problem for many of us. It must stop and let Deaf professionals respond in writing articles or journals, and speak for ourselves based on our real experiences!
September 24th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Hi Candance,
What about the hearing researchers whose parents are deaf? Just curious.
I am pretty sure that you could compare between these hearing with deaf parents and deaf researchers. It must be an interesting topic.
White Ghost
September 24th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Dear Candace,
This is an evocative vlog! Very! Thank you for not only sharing your thoughts, but as well, I appreciate that you have begun this conversation thread.
1-I totally agree with you that deaf and hearing researchers must have co-researcher status and all that entails: researching, reviewing and discussing the literature; designing, implementing and following up on the study parameters; writing/signing, editing, reviewing and publishing/filming the finished collaborative project. I equivocate on one point only, just for clarity’s sake: BOTH co-researchers MUST be qualified in the subject they’re researching. I have serious concerns that far too much research has been, is being done by and will most likely continue to be done by individuals who are not qualified to do professional and academic research, deaf and hearing alike. I have concerns on just about everything: the ethical approach to the parameters of a study; development and implementation of the study subjects and parameters; and how research is “interpreted” (i.e. published). And these are jut the basics!! Sigh.
2-Actually, there is a “good” thing about all the questionable research: I see decades of work ahead of us deaf professionals in creating a digital library of professional and academic research of which a lot needs to be done to clean up the mess of the past research. I am actually excited about the possibilities for GREAT research that will create a renowned and long lasting digital “library” with a prestiguous reputation for quality and timely research subjects done by talented and ethical deaf researchers.
3-I am excited, as well, for the potential of what a digital research “engine” will do for the world of research in general. To maintain a steady growth, though, funds are going to be needed and I sincerely hope that the folks involved with the Deaf Studies Digital Journal (and any other Digital Research Engines) will make sure that funding, and the creation of a proactive professional and academic network, is actively developed and maintained. The key word here is PROACTIVE!!
On a final note, Raychelle, I am so terribly disappointed that you have had to edit and tone down your articles. Please please keep the original intact and, if you are willing, would you allow it to be electronically posted on a reputable website? You do have options for websites that charge and don’t charge readers. This is just a thought because I confess I’m curious to read what you wrote.
Once again, this is a fabulous vlog, Candace!
All the Best!
-oo-
September 24th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Karen in #10,
Could you kindly provide the names of deaf researchers at the
University of Rochester? Have they authored any book on the
brains of the deaf. I would love to read it.
Merci beaucoup.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:57 am
White Ghost
Why would you want to compare hearing researchers with deaf parents with deaf researchers? They are two completely different groups of people.
JD
September 24th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
JD –
Please read my statement again.
Of course, they are two different groups of people on many issues in their areas. At this point, I am trying to say is that my question is that will the hearing researchers with deaf parents (CODAs) and the deaf researchers with the hearing parents be the same boat on many psychological issues.
Hope you understand what I am saying. Hope it helps.
White Ghost
September 24th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Excellent points.
While we are on the subject, our blogs and vlogs are constantly under the microscope. Scholars specializing in ASL, Deaf Studies, Sociology, Deaf Education, Psychology, etc are examining us closely.. like ants. Not a nice feeling, eh?
I’ve gotten e mails from these scholars asking me questions, some pretty personal. They casually mentioned that they are doing ‘research’ on my blogs. Other deafies informed me that they have also received these ’surveys’
I have mixed feelings. Understanding Deaf Culture is good, but some of the blogs and vlogs are too ‘intimate’ to be studied as specimen. I feel it is a privacy of invasion for hearing people to study us in Cyber Deaf World, taking notes of our mannerisms and quirks without our permission. Excuse me. We are not animals.
Good to see you vlogging again, Candace
September 24th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
AMEN AMEN AMEN to your vlog! Let’s serve a notice to the research community-
“We can take care of ourselves, thankyouverymuch. We will invite you when we need or want you.”
I’ve seen research projects fall apart because the Deaf weren’t in the PRINCIPAL roles!!!!! Too often they were hired as Research Assistant, Tester, or whatever- duping the Deaf community into thinking that this or that project was Deaf-centered. Nosiree.
Here’s to more Deaf principal researchers, more Deaf-centered research, and the eradication of Audist-influenced statements such as- “Language delays because of their hearing loss”?!!! Jeez. Our language delays are because of DEPRIVATION. 69% of current school-age children come from families that don’t sign. Correlation- low academic scores. Stop blaming the victim.
Thank you so much for the vlog– your hard work compiling the info sure shows.
DE
September 24th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Candance, points well taken! Wow! I echo sentiments of those before me….here’s my piece and consequence, peace….
Thank you for saying what you said! I liked your calm and stoic presentation. Well said as in being straightforward and clear. I liked how you made your points by using other cultures as examples ion.
In a long story winded very short, I’ve been under the scrunity as a Deaf college student (all levels) and even as a Deaf professional. I have been hurt by these so called researchers.They are published names in the field. Unknownst to me, I was their gullible ally! Unfortunately, it is too late to question their motivation or involvement in the field. They’ve made their mark and it’s up to them to keep their name afloat or inflate it?! Either way, it sounds greedy and selfish if you ask me!
Indeed, the principle of giving back to the research subject in our case, the Deaf community is a blind one and now, so many protocols have been developed whereas it is easy to get sucked into a research project because there are incentives, like money! See what money can buy? Our people getting paid for participating in research where there are resources to share for getting the statistics and then some more, how about a Starbuck card?
Time rings in rushes for these folks to smell the coffee and start displaying behaviors that respect the parameters of research with partners who are members of the community at large. Lights flash because historically research hasn’t been used well enough to produce results! Who doesn’t want academic,intellectual and language achievement in students with hearing losses of all kinds, excellent behavioral health, unfied sense of community and abundance like with other cultural minitories who are Blacks, Latinos, etc. Perhaps the deafness research has helped others succeeed but little has shown where it’s blossomed in communities that use ASL.
White Ghost,As for the CODAs getting on the ball,that’s another bag of tricks and another topic to discuss. From my personal experience, CODAs have been termed as secretive and/or sleazy yet very helpful and cooperative to those in the ‘tribe’. Who knows what they want and when they want it!? There’s something in it for everyone!
Trust is at the bottom of the helping self-acutalization pyramid. If anyone wants to help or heal someone or any group or community, you have to come to terms with belonging, then when you find out what works, use it well so that EVERYONE benefits and it SHOWS with ripple effects for years to come!
Better late than never?! Eh?
Never a dull moment!
Sb~
September 26th, 2007 at 4:37 am
Ella - I agree, it goes both ways and the issues apply to both researchers
AND research participants.
Jean - yes, I remember Bell’s Curve. That’s a good example of what I am
talking about.
MikeS - Glad you found the vlog educational.
Poorna - You made a good clarification - it is the language deprivation, not
that someone is Deaf per se, that relates to the language delays. I look
forward to reading your papers. It’s great to see Deaf researchers out
there!
ASL Risen - Glad you agree!
JD - I do hope more Deaf people will think twice before participating in
research. It’s essential that we know who is conducting it and that we are
aware of the political consequences of any research. I agree about CODAs -
just being a CODA in and of itself isn’t enough. Attitude and willingness
to work equally with Deaf people is more important.
Karen Mayes - Thanks for bringing up the University of Rochester study. It
would be nice if the researchers on the website were identified as Deaf or
hearing.
September 26th, 2007 at 4:41 am
Awesome insights! I certainly hope that your insights will come true for us all.
September 26th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Raychelle - Many thanks for sharing those very relevant articles on cultural
sensitive research ethics in other minority communities. We have lots to
learn from these researchers! I am with Jules, putting in my two cents that
you should publish your article “as is”, instead of toning it down. Was the
reviewer from the first journal Deaf or hearing? I’d not be surprised
either way, since there are, sadly, still many Deaf scholars and
professionals who worry excessively about stepping on hearing colleagues’
toes. Another issue…how to deal with the gatekeepers who try to keep out
strongly Deaf-centered articles. Hopefully, the DSDJ will be Deaf-centered
and run by Deaf editors!
Deaf Socrate’s Tail - I do hope more Deaf people will publish their
research. The Deaf Studies Digital Journal (DSDJ) mentioned by Raychelle
will be a great place for Deaf researchers to start…and hopefully, more
Deaf researchers will be mentored and encouraged to publish in the future.
White Ghost - CODA researchers (hearing researchers whose parents are Deaf)
are still hearing people, even though they may have a special insight into
the Deaf community. Their perspective is valued, but again, they are not
Deaf.
Jules NelsonHill - Definitely, whether the research is done by a Deaf or
hearing person, it’s important that all aspects of the research are carried
out ethically and to the highest standards. It’s interesting that when it
comes to determining how “qualified” a researcher is, so much more scrutiny
seems to be given to Deaf researchers, as if they are unqualified until
proven otherwise. We need to scrutinize hearing researchers, just as much,
and probably even more.
September 26th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Jean - you can see the link to the researchers in JD’s comment above, but
unfortunately, none of the researchers are identified outright as Deaf or
hearing.
Mishkazena - Again, we need to pay attention to whom those “researchers”
are who are studying blogs and vlogs - my guess, from the surveys I have
received, is that a good number of them are not very well-versed in Deaf
issues in the first place…so whatever they come up with as findings most
likely leaves plenty of room for questioning. Anything published in print
or in the cybersphere, however, is public and open to analysis, including
analysis of the author’s use of language, topic choice, etc., like it or
not.
DE - Thanks for your support. I, too, look forward to seeing more Deaf
researchers in principal roles, instead of subordinate ones (raising the
question of whether they are recruited as equals or as “token” Deaf
collaborators).
Suzy - I’ve heard stories of other Deaf people being “used” by hearing
researchers, who took their ideas and suggestions and went ahead and
published research without ever giving credit to the Deaf people. Very sad
and self-serving. I believe research should contribute to the Deaf
community - it should be useful and have very real implications for changing
things. It shouldn’t be a bunch of numbers or articles that sit on the
shelf or pad up someone’s resume.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Yes, I agreed with your answer to Suzy’s question about Deaf people were being Used by hearing researchers! I feel that the hearing reseachers are taking advntage of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ like SNAKE OIL!!
September 26th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Suzy/Candance,
It’s an interesting thought. We have to be very careful and make the judgments on these researchers and the background.
Wish we could shove their backgrounds to make sure they respect our values.
I agree that we need to scrutinize ANY researchers, either deaf or hearing with the CODAs as much we can.
However, I wish the researchers could provide the list in the website. So that way we can spread the words of the mouth. I do not see anything in the website.
How sad.
White Ghost
September 26th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
White Ghost,
You hit the nail on the head! Some researchers are audists’ deaf
protégés. An audist who is a former professor told his student in
front of other students: “Are you hard-of-hearing? Are your parents
hearing?” To which the student replied, “Yes.” Then the professor
went on to say, “Not surprisingly because your English is excellent.
Deaf people who are born deaf cannot write a correct sentence.”
The students who eavesdropped were horrifieid. That time we had no
term audism or paternalism in our vocabulary in the early 1970s.
Had the audist said that after our highly esteemed Dr. Allen
Sussman coined paternalism, or paternalistic mentality, in 1988,
we would have filed a complaint about the professor for two
reasons: discrimination and disinformation. Disinformation I am
referring to the professor who falsely said that deaf people born
deaf cannot write correctly. Many a hearing individual does not
write correctly even though he has normal hearing. Or, speech
skills, for that matter.
September 26th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Jean B. –
Gotcha! You have my exclamation marks!
I honestly do not think some researchers with the audism have changed….they might have the status quo in years.
White Ghost
September 26th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Jules & Candace
Thanks for your suggestion and reassurance that it should be posted as is - I talked with my co-authors and we agreed to wait for the results from the second journal… then go from there. We definitely will publish/share the original article after we know more about the results for the second, toned down article.
The only identifying information we have about our reviewers are their names: Reviewer 1, Reviewer 2 and Reviewer 3
So we don’t know if they’re deaf or hearing - and I agree with you Candace, that particular reviewer could easily be either deaf or hearing…
For a taster of what’s in our article.. we started a blog - but wanted to wait until the article is published before posting the entire thing on the blog for feedback from the community..
http://blog.deafread.com/slcresearchethics/
November 26th, 2007 at 10:58 am
WOW! Many of what u said, I never thought of it but very educational. I learn something abd I truly agreed with u most of what u said. I believe the otheres should see this vlog. I will share this with deaf community. THUMP UP! WELL JOB DONE!
January 19th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
hello from Ireland.
Welldone and I totally agree with your views about the hearing researchers that take an advantage of us.
I used to live in a boarding school for many years. I still remembered that there were a lot of psychology students from some different colleges assessing us and played the psychological games with us to see if how intelligent we are etc. I now realise that they abused our parents because they did not ask them for their permission for testing or researching on us.
Thank you for your attention
February 7th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
I agreed with YOU!!! I knew deaf people ways with negatives as materialisms.
I knew that they failed following their own hearts, because they were fellow their people’s words than themselves… I met many deaf people from poorest people to richest people and also lowest educators to smartest educators in world. I understood deepest of DEAF LIFES. I took yoga things with meditate tools deepest since 1976 and understood deepest of living spirits for myself, VERY WELL!!!
I wanted helping ALL DEAF into BETTER LIVING LIFES with very open minds in real world than their own words by other people‘s words…
I don’t care about ASL. YOU fellow your own heart as Natural LAW!!!
February 19th, 2008 at 8:38 am
As a counseling student, I am fascinated by your vlog and decided to do some research. I went through Gallaudet University’s Mental Health Counseling faculty staff’s selected publications. I found that what you said is very true. Their hearing faculty staff DID NOT work with Deaf researchers. We should start looking for programs that encourage publications by Deaf researchers. How about you setting up a new program somewhere? I’d love to get training from you.
Smith, K., &; Rush, L. (2006). Counseling students who are deaf. In J. Lippincott
(Ed.), Special populations in college counseling. Arlington, VA: American Counseling
Association
Zieziula, F.R. &; Harris, G. (1998). National survey of school counselors working with
deaf and hard of hearing children. American Annals of the Deaf, 143 (1), 40-45.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
M.S.
*Shaking head* that is Kendra Smith who did research with the other hearing researcher. Kendra, a girlfriend of MJ Beinnvenu should know better than that! We should out other hearing researchers here. M.S. thank you for bringing it to our attention.
February 21st, 2008 at 3:17 am
JD or M.S>
Is that hearing research called “Deafness Research Foundation”? Just curious! Thanks
February 24th, 2008 at 7:45 am
I’d also check out the deaf researchers, too. Some of them are latened-deaf and might not support the Deaf Culture.
The deaf researchers should study the hearing people. I would love to know why they consider us burdensome when in reality they are burdensome to us by discriminating and prejudging us, refusing to learn sign language even after we learn to speak, so on. Also I would love to know why they have a bent on their deaf child’s ability to hear. I think they are in denial.
http://www.alldeaf.com/our-world-our-culture/49443-hearing-researchers-why-do-they-study-deaf-people.html
February 24th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I would also check out to see if a deaf researcher is an implantée. I have — thanks to Deafblogsphere — observed that some implantées are biased and prejudiced. Some of them are insensitive to say that non-implantées would be normal if they wore CI.
Dolnick (Atlantic Monthly’s Letters to the Editor, Dec. 1993) says as follows:
.