Thank You deaf and dumb now that’s a
relic from the past or is it is this an
image is this a description is it a
label is it an expression when I was
very young and out with my family I
heard these words describing us I am the
only hearing person in my immediate
family my parents and my brother are
profoundly deaf and until I was 2 we
lived at the Utah School for the Deaf so
I was around lots of hearing and deaf
people my parents were teachers there
they had grown up from kindergarten to
through high school in that school they
went to Gallaudet College in Washington
DC and then after graduation returned to
begin their teaching careers at that
school now my parents could speak very
well which is totally counter to
something I heard years later which was
anyone who signs will never learn to
talk now I know from my own experiences
with my family and many other deaf
people that that is not true that it’s a
bias comment or it shows a total
misconception towards sign language and
towards those who are deaf so back to my
parents they could speak very well their
voices had characteristics of tonality
and flow and rhythm that were a little
different but everybody who communicated
with them and hearing people who talked
with them no one had any too
called understanding them their command
of English was superb absolutely superb
their Librium skills were amazing my dad
once explained lip-reading to me as
constantly putting a puzzle together
which is fascinating when you think
about that he said you go for the
content words and keep in mind the
context of the conversation and then you
fill in with your knowledge of sentence
structure you fill in all the other
words but he cautions he said you could
if you miss one word this understand it
or just miss the word you may go you may
be going down this path of communication
understanding while the real
communication is going down another path
so it’s very difficult now that was in
the era before in turf ratures as we
have here who’ve absolutely made a huge
difference in accessing information
accurately especially for the Deaf and
especially in a large group like this so
my parents their very own language what
they considered their own with sign
language when they talked to me directly
they used their voices and talked and
find at the same time the reason for
this is they were worried about me they
realize or they believed that I needed
to have a lot of experience talking and
hearing and learning through hearing
spoken for spoken language and voices so
they always use their voices with me but
they always signed and the reason for
that was the whole principle of
inclusion including one another and
including my brother about the time of
my second birthday we moved from the
school to a house and a few months later
so I was you know somewhere between two
and three I really don’t remember but
what I do remember was a sudden one day
a sudden realization that nobody could
hear me because now it’s just the four
of us before it was at the school with
lots of people now it’s just the four of
us and I was the only one that could
hear my voice so I made a conscious
decision not to use it anymore so I
mouth as I as I taught and I used signs
at the same time and that was my habit
with with the Deaf this played out with
it really interesting consequences when
we were out among the people who were
not familiar with us and didn’t know
anything about being deaf and because I
didn’t use my voice everybody assumed I
was deaf as well so I heard lots of
comments and some of them were very
demeaning and very judgmental comments
which were very upsetting to me I was
most aware of that it’s coming and
becoming aware of that when I was around
six and an example was we were out at a
restaurant and lots of things were going
onto the table next to us and you know
what’s wrong with those people
oh they’re deaf and dumb well but why
did they do that well they’re just not
educated and those kinds of of
descriptions were very upsetting to me
so I struggled and one time when I was
struggling through this I remember
thinking I will never let my parents
know people say these things I will
protect them and several weeks later I
had another experience where a large
family we were out at the restaurant
again and a large family was seated at
the table next to us and they were
particularly latent in their comments so
I’m going through this internal struggle
again listen
to them and trying to you know not feel
what I was feeling and then all of a
sudden which I really can’t explain all
of a sudden a calm came over me with the
words in my mind they they are this way
because they never had experience with
deaf people before they’re they just
don’t know better and that was followed
by the thought I can’t change them which
was followed by the thought that time
will increase understanding it was
amazing and at that moment mmm I just
let go and it never bothered me again
and this enabled that letting go enabled
me when we were leaving the restaurant
I went to their table and smiled and
said I sure hope you enjoy your meal so
let’s look at these words again
definitely done what about them I I
still occasionally you’ll hear it
occasionally the only explanation I can
find for that that I can imagine is that
this has become an expression and if a
person uses it it’s because they’ve
probably heard it in reference to people
who are deaf and without thinking about
what the words mean they just repeat the
pattern but truly these words are
totally inappropriate and offensive so
we do away with them now I came to
Grinnell intending to great major in
Russian and once I was here I realized
that my heart was really in teaching
deaf children and so I switched my major
to American Studies as a background for
teaching
and after graduation went on to graduate
school in speech and hearing with an
emphasis on teaching the Deaf and then I
taught for four years before we moved to
Rochester Minnesota
now in Rochester Mayo Clinic was one of
the FDA sites trial sites for cochlear
implantation and this was around 1981 so
in the in 1981 I received a call from
the head of audiology at Mayo who knew
my background with my family and with
teaching and he said we just didn’t
planted our first adult with a cochlear
implant
I said that’s wonderful he said we need
you to come down here and do auditory
training with our implanted adults I
said I don’t know anything about
cochlear implants and he said neither do
we
so come join in with us and we’ll all
learn together and that’s exactly what
happened now if you know anything about
the controversies of education of deaf
deaf culture versus world training and
all of that and medical intervention you
might question or wonder about my
motives in making this decision to jump
in with them but I believed because what
I was doing was taking one foot and
stepping into the world of medical
intervention for the Deaf medical
perspectives for the day of the death
while my other foot which I call my
family root foot was still in the Deaf
cultural world but I believed that I
could manage that I could balance and
that I could into we’ve all of these
things and even that maybe I could be
of help to hearing professionals helping
them understand and maybe appreciate the
realities that deaf people feel and have
so ii4 from 1981 to 2011 I served and
worked as the deaf education specialist
counselor and counselor for three
different cochlear implant programs
associated with academic centers in
three different states and I started of
course with Mayo Clinic and I did the
auditory training and counseling with
their adult patients from 81 to 1990 in
1998 January it the fda-approved
cochlear implant implantation for
children and a lot of things changed we
were in Florida at the time and I became
immediately involved in court in setting
up and coordinating a team of people to
do to us to assess and make a decision
about implantation because it was not we
had the prerogative no one had to be
implanted we had the prerogative of
choosing those we would implant and we
were always worried about children that
their parents have the correct
perspective and expectation and so I did
that in Florida and again in Houston
Texas until nine until 2011
now those professional experiences
working first with adults and then with
the children and their families together
with my experiences growing up with the
death with my parents with the Deaf
culture world have come together for me
come together confirming
this perspective and and believe that I
know I’ve always had that deaf is truly
just a different reality than hearing
it’s not less than it’s just different
it’s equal to hearing and so keep that
in mind
as I was working with the children I’m
there
things that I would share with their
parents to help them appreciate their
children’s abilities is that those who
are born deaf or lose their hearing very
early of life develop abilities that we
who are hearing will never have and we
know we all know that we have our basic
senses if we lose one the others are
heightened and become more acute and
particularly for the deaf that would be
the visual sense and augmented by the
tactile fence and so they’re they’re
very visually sensitive in ways that we
are not and also tactically so we had I
often had parents come in to counseling
with me and they’d and I’d been working
with them or all of them the team had
been working them with them for quite a
while just we know the testing and they
would say you know we know with all this
testing you say that our child is deaf
but we’re really having a hard time
believing this because every time we
walk into his room or went into his face
he turns and looks at us and so I would
smile and say okay think about this you
know what the testing is you’ve seen all
of it now think about the senses we have
what would clue your child into knowing
that you’ve come into his face and so
generally of course I would say oh yes
every time you open a door or close a
door in a chewer room air currents
in the room every time there’s movement
in the room there is movement of air
currents we are oblivious we who are
hearing don’t pay any attention to that
but those without hearing and they had
this heightened sensitivity they feel it
and they respond and it was really
important to help parents understand
that they had these abilities that were
very unique that they as parents didn’t
have when I was a little girl I remember
watching my dad in a he was playing in a
basketball game on it’s deaf team
against a hearing team it was a
championship game and as he made the
final winning throw throw or winning
basket then everybody erupted and all
the fans go out on the state out on the
floor and I’m running out there to I I
don’t know I was I was younger than five
and I ran up to him and what did I ask
how can you do that how do you know
where people are behind you your death
and then I realized I asked a really
dumb question and he was very kind and
smiled like town Randy said I feel them
so it’s that kind of sensitivity that
they use all the time that we are
oblivious to I also believe that those
who are deaf have even a deeper sense of
sensitivity that we who are hearing in
our sense of well-being and our sense of
security at any moment in time is first
dependent on hearing we rely on our
hearing for that security you take that
away then what do you have if you don’t
have hearing then you rely
these tactile and visual senses to give
you that sense of security and I felt
this was really important I saw the
results of talking with parents about it
was very important to help them
appreciate and understand that their
children had unique abilities that we
should support and and indeed celebrate
that deaf being deaf or their deaf what
their lack of hearing was not something
we should approach with an attitude of
or a goal of fixing it now there are
major choices that people who do who are
deaf have just as all of us we have
major choices in our lives that affect
the realities of the rest of our lives
and our our development our progress and
our own lifelong progress and
development for those who do not have
hearing one of those major choices is
cochlear implantation
it is a medical option now cochlear
implants are an incredible tool but
that’s what they are they’re a tool but
they are incredible and over time I have
seen incredible progression in the
development of these implants and they
are becoming more and more sophisticated
in accessing sound and very refined and
specific ways yet success with a
cochlear implant is dependent on it’s
not push-button it’s dependent on many
many many experiences of listening
constantly listening with the implant
which means you’re personally wearing it
listening with the implant and making
correct associations with experience
with whatever is going on at that moment
whether it’s an object that you’re
dealing with or
an activity or speech communication so
you have to have layer upon layer upon
layer of experience listening and trying
to make sense out of it and that was
critical in helping everyone who is I’m
trying to understand they had to get
over that it wasn’t a push-button
miracle now we hear with our brains the
implant circumvents that part of the ear
that isn’t working and goes directly to
stimulate the hearing nerve that goes to
the brain so this this experience that
is needed is needed by the brain the
brain has to have ample opportunity to
access sound and then make those correct
associations over time and figure out
what it means and then assimilate into
speech production into language
recognition and language comprehension
now the those who are signing and using
fine language who may have grown up with
sign language or learned it along the
way later they identify wholly with a
cultural aspect of being deaf they
choose American Sign Language or ASL as
their cultural language and they
identify with those who do the same
American Sign Language is a complete and
complex language is not an inferior copy
of English it has its own syntactical
system which is very different than
English and a very complex of what
syntactical system very complex
vocabulary and it’s a beautiful language
as you can see and those who
this cultural choice or choose the
cultural Avenue then of course they’re
part of the Deaf culture and the Deaf
culture has become a very proud and very
vibrant entity and it has an incredible
history and many accomplished
individuals who have come from that
cultural realm this the choices that
they have that those who are deaf face
is it is controversial
sometimes and it presents dilemmas to
them along the way some of them more
than others but there definitely are
those choices whether to go with the
cultural identity and and go with Deaf
culture whether to access sound through
a cochlear implant whether to do both
that’s another choice but these choices
present dilemmas now Marlee Matlin whom
you may recognize as a very well known
deaf actress recently produced a
documentary called on deaf out I missed
deaf out loud I hit the button I’m sorry
deaf out loud and you I don’t have the
icon here but it is a beautiful
documentary which presents three
different families and through these
three different families you can see the
kinds of dilemmas that they face in
making choices of what kind of was the
language of schooling education do they
go with oral only or do they go with
assignment with the simultaneous using
sign language as well as speech and
language and lip-reading training they
are very difficult and you can see
through their struggles how complex it
is and
you can identify with them in many of
those cases along with deaf outloud is
there are lots of different I’ve heard
more but I’ve only seen switched at
birth but switched at birth is a TV
serial that addresses these complex
choices again and the dilemmas that
those who are deaf face in making
choices do I get an implant or not what
will the Deaf culture say those kinds of
things
another movie that it’s worth watching
is wonderful came from 2007 as a
documentary award-winning that was
produced by I Irene Taylor
broadsky it’s chronicles the decision of
her deaf parents deaf since birth
and or a few months of age to get a
cochlear implant to receive cochlear
implants at age 65 they did it one week
apart so they went through this together
and it is a beautiful very sensitive
portrayal of of that process of
assimilating to the realities of the
cochlear implant and making sense out of
the sounds that they received more
importantly it is a very important
chronicling of the individual variation
in that process because they both went
there are many deaf people who have
excelled in their lifetime who have
become some of them very famous and and
others not so but they’ve contributed
tremendously to all the disciplines from
art to science and probably the most
iconic of those is Helen Keller who is
pictured here and who undoubtably and it
was a remarkable brilliant woman
deaf and blind but she in her many in
her several books that she offered that
she authored she really shares with you
her philosophies and her experiences of
the reality of being deaf my mother when
she was a young woman met her and spoke
with her in sign language
signing being into her cupped hand a
little bit as you see here and she says
it was the most thrilling memorable
experience of her life a final thought
there is no template for me being deaf
just as there’s no template for being
hearing each of us is unique our
enduring challenge then is to
continually seek to understand to
appreciate and to support one another in
the choices that we make our unique choices that make up our lives thank you
relic from the past or is it is this an
image is this a description is it a
label is it an expression when I was
very young and out with my family I
heard these words describing us I am the
only hearing person in my immediate
family my parents and my brother are
profoundly deaf and until I was 2 we
lived at the Utah School for the Deaf so
I was around lots of hearing and deaf
people my parents were teachers there
they had grown up from kindergarten to
through high school in that school they
went to Gallaudet College in Washington
DC and then after graduation returned to
begin their teaching careers at that
school now my parents could speak very
well which is totally counter to
something I heard years later which was
anyone who signs will never learn to
talk now I know from my own experiences
with my family and many other deaf
people that that is not true that it’s a
bias comment or it shows a total
misconception towards sign language and
towards those who are deaf so back to my
parents they could speak very well their
voices had characteristics of tonality
and flow and rhythm that were a little
different but everybody who communicated
with them and hearing people who talked
with them no one had any too
called understanding them their command
of English was superb absolutely superb
their Librium skills were amazing my dad
once explained lip-reading to me as
constantly putting a puzzle together
which is fascinating when you think
about that he said you go for the
content words and keep in mind the
context of the conversation and then you
fill in with your knowledge of sentence
structure you fill in all the other
words but he cautions he said you could
if you miss one word this understand it
or just miss the word you may go you may
be going down this path of communication
understanding while the real
communication is going down another path
so it’s very difficult now that was in
the era before in turf ratures as we
have here who’ve absolutely made a huge
difference in accessing information
accurately especially for the Deaf and
especially in a large group like this so
my parents their very own language what
they considered their own with sign
language when they talked to me directly
they used their voices and talked and
find at the same time the reason for
this is they were worried about me they
realize or they believed that I needed
to have a lot of experience talking and
hearing and learning through hearing
spoken for spoken language and voices so
they always use their voices with me but
they always signed and the reason for
that was the whole principle of
inclusion including one another and
including my brother about the time of
my second birthday we moved from the
school to a house and a few months later
so I was you know somewhere between two
and three I really don’t remember but
what I do remember was a sudden one day
a sudden realization that nobody could
hear me because now it’s just the four
of us before it was at the school with
lots of people now it’s just the four of
us and I was the only one that could
hear my voice so I made a conscious
decision not to use it anymore so I
mouth as I as I taught and I used signs
at the same time and that was my habit
with with the Deaf this played out with
it really interesting consequences when
we were out among the people who were
not familiar with us and didn’t know
anything about being deaf and because I
didn’t use my voice everybody assumed I
was deaf as well so I heard lots of
comments and some of them were very
demeaning and very judgmental comments
which were very upsetting to me I was
most aware of that it’s coming and
becoming aware of that when I was around
six and an example was we were out at a
restaurant and lots of things were going
onto the table next to us and you know
what’s wrong with those people
oh they’re deaf and dumb well but why
did they do that well they’re just not
educated and those kinds of of
descriptions were very upsetting to me
so I struggled and one time when I was
struggling through this I remember
thinking I will never let my parents
know people say these things I will
protect them and several weeks later I
had another experience where a large
family we were out at the restaurant
again and a large family was seated at
the table next to us and they were
particularly latent in their comments so
I’m going through this internal struggle
again listen
to them and trying to you know not feel
what I was feeling and then all of a
sudden which I really can’t explain all
of a sudden a calm came over me with the
words in my mind they they are this way
because they never had experience with
deaf people before they’re they just
don’t know better and that was followed
by the thought I can’t change them which
was followed by the thought that time
will increase understanding it was
amazing and at that moment mmm I just
let go and it never bothered me again
and this enabled that letting go enabled
me when we were leaving the restaurant
I went to their table and smiled and
said I sure hope you enjoy your meal so
let’s look at these words again
definitely done what about them I I
still occasionally you’ll hear it
occasionally the only explanation I can
find for that that I can imagine is that
this has become an expression and if a
person uses it it’s because they’ve
probably heard it in reference to people
who are deaf and without thinking about
what the words mean they just repeat the
pattern but truly these words are
totally inappropriate and offensive so
we do away with them now I came to
Grinnell intending to great major in
Russian and once I was here I realized
that my heart was really in teaching
deaf children and so I switched my major
to American Studies as a background for
teaching
and after graduation went on to graduate
school in speech and hearing with an
emphasis on teaching the Deaf and then I
taught for four years before we moved to
Rochester Minnesota
now in Rochester Mayo Clinic was one of
the FDA sites trial sites for cochlear
implantation and this was around 1981 so
in the in 1981 I received a call from
the head of audiology at Mayo who knew
my background with my family and with
teaching and he said we just didn’t
planted our first adult with a cochlear
implant
I said that’s wonderful he said we need
you to come down here and do auditory
training with our implanted adults I
said I don’t know anything about
cochlear implants and he said neither do
we
so come join in with us and we’ll all
learn together and that’s exactly what
happened now if you know anything about
the controversies of education of deaf
deaf culture versus world training and
all of that and medical intervention you
might question or wonder about my
motives in making this decision to jump
in with them but I believed because what
I was doing was taking one foot and
stepping into the world of medical
intervention for the Deaf medical
perspectives for the day of the death
while my other foot which I call my
family root foot was still in the Deaf
cultural world but I believed that I
could manage that I could balance and
that I could into we’ve all of these
things and even that maybe I could be
of help to hearing professionals helping
them understand and maybe appreciate the
realities that deaf people feel and have
so ii4 from 1981 to 2011 I served and
worked as the deaf education specialist
counselor and counselor for three
different cochlear implant programs
associated with academic centers in
three different states and I started of
course with Mayo Clinic and I did the
auditory training and counseling with
their adult patients from 81 to 1990 in
1998 January it the fda-approved
cochlear implant implantation for
children and a lot of things changed we
were in Florida at the time and I became
immediately involved in court in setting
up and coordinating a team of people to
do to us to assess and make a decision
about implantation because it was not we
had the prerogative no one had to be
implanted we had the prerogative of
choosing those we would implant and we
were always worried about children that
their parents have the correct
perspective and expectation and so I did
that in Florida and again in Houston
Texas until nine until 2011
now those professional experiences
working first with adults and then with
the children and their families together
with my experiences growing up with the
death with my parents with the Deaf
culture world have come together for me
come together confirming
this perspective and and believe that I
know I’ve always had that deaf is truly
just a different reality than hearing
it’s not less than it’s just different
it’s equal to hearing and so keep that
in mind
as I was working with the children I’m
there
things that I would share with their
parents to help them appreciate their
children’s abilities is that those who
are born deaf or lose their hearing very
early of life develop abilities that we
who are hearing will never have and we
know we all know that we have our basic
senses if we lose one the others are
heightened and become more acute and
particularly for the deaf that would be
the visual sense and augmented by the
tactile fence and so they’re they’re
very visually sensitive in ways that we
are not and also tactically so we had I
often had parents come in to counseling
with me and they’d and I’d been working
with them or all of them the team had
been working them with them for quite a
while just we know the testing and they
would say you know we know with all this
testing you say that our child is deaf
but we’re really having a hard time
believing this because every time we
walk into his room or went into his face
he turns and looks at us and so I would
smile and say okay think about this you
know what the testing is you’ve seen all
of it now think about the senses we have
what would clue your child into knowing
that you’ve come into his face and so
generally of course I would say oh yes
every time you open a door or close a
door in a chewer room air currents
in the room every time there’s movement
in the room there is movement of air
currents we are oblivious we who are
hearing don’t pay any attention to that
but those without hearing and they had
this heightened sensitivity they feel it
and they respond and it was really
important to help parents understand
that they had these abilities that were
very unique that they as parents didn’t
have when I was a little girl I remember
watching my dad in a he was playing in a
basketball game on it’s deaf team
against a hearing team it was a
championship game and as he made the
final winning throw throw or winning
basket then everybody erupted and all
the fans go out on the state out on the
floor and I’m running out there to I I
don’t know I was I was younger than five
and I ran up to him and what did I ask
how can you do that how do you know
where people are behind you your death
and then I realized I asked a really
dumb question and he was very kind and
smiled like town Randy said I feel them
so it’s that kind of sensitivity that
they use all the time that we are
oblivious to I also believe that those
who are deaf have even a deeper sense of
sensitivity that we who are hearing in
our sense of well-being and our sense of
security at any moment in time is first
dependent on hearing we rely on our
hearing for that security you take that
away then what do you have if you don’t
have hearing then you rely
these tactile and visual senses to give
you that sense of security and I felt
this was really important I saw the
results of talking with parents about it
was very important to help them
appreciate and understand that their
children had unique abilities that we
should support and and indeed celebrate
that deaf being deaf or their deaf what
their lack of hearing was not something
we should approach with an attitude of
or a goal of fixing it now there are
major choices that people who do who are
deaf have just as all of us we have
major choices in our lives that affect
the realities of the rest of our lives
and our our development our progress and
our own lifelong progress and
development for those who do not have
hearing one of those major choices is
cochlear implantation
it is a medical option now cochlear
implants are an incredible tool but
that’s what they are they’re a tool but
they are incredible and over time I have
seen incredible progression in the
development of these implants and they
are becoming more and more sophisticated
in accessing sound and very refined and
specific ways yet success with a
cochlear implant is dependent on it’s
not push-button it’s dependent on many
many many experiences of listening
constantly listening with the implant
which means you’re personally wearing it
listening with the implant and making
correct associations with experience
with whatever is going on at that moment
whether it’s an object that you’re
dealing with or
an activity or speech communication so
you have to have layer upon layer upon
layer of experience listening and trying
to make sense out of it and that was
critical in helping everyone who is I’m
trying to understand they had to get
over that it wasn’t a push-button
miracle now we hear with our brains the
implant circumvents that part of the ear
that isn’t working and goes directly to
stimulate the hearing nerve that goes to
the brain so this this experience that
is needed is needed by the brain the
brain has to have ample opportunity to
access sound and then make those correct
associations over time and figure out
what it means and then assimilate into
speech production into language
recognition and language comprehension
now the those who are signing and using
fine language who may have grown up with
sign language or learned it along the
way later they identify wholly with a
cultural aspect of being deaf they
choose American Sign Language or ASL as
their cultural language and they
identify with those who do the same
American Sign Language is a complete and
complex language is not an inferior copy
of English it has its own syntactical
system which is very different than
English and a very complex of what
syntactical system very complex
vocabulary and it’s a beautiful language
as you can see and those who
this cultural choice or choose the
cultural Avenue then of course they’re
part of the Deaf culture and the Deaf
culture has become a very proud and very
vibrant entity and it has an incredible
history and many accomplished
individuals who have come from that
cultural realm this the choices that
they have that those who are deaf face
is it is controversial
sometimes and it presents dilemmas to
them along the way some of them more
than others but there definitely are
those choices whether to go with the
cultural identity and and go with Deaf
culture whether to access sound through
a cochlear implant whether to do both
that’s another choice but these choices
present dilemmas now Marlee Matlin whom
you may recognize as a very well known
deaf actress recently produced a
documentary called on deaf out I missed
deaf out loud I hit the button I’m sorry
deaf out loud and you I don’t have the
icon here but it is a beautiful
documentary which presents three
different families and through these
three different families you can see the
kinds of dilemmas that they face in
making choices of what kind of was the
language of schooling education do they
go with oral only or do they go with
assignment with the simultaneous using
sign language as well as speech and
language and lip-reading training they
are very difficult and you can see
through their struggles how complex it
is and
you can identify with them in many of
those cases along with deaf outloud is
there are lots of different I’ve heard
more but I’ve only seen switched at
birth but switched at birth is a TV
serial that addresses these complex
choices again and the dilemmas that
those who are deaf face in making
choices do I get an implant or not what
will the Deaf culture say those kinds of
things
another movie that it’s worth watching
is wonderful came from 2007 as a
documentary award-winning that was
produced by I Irene Taylor
broadsky it’s chronicles the decision of
her deaf parents deaf since birth
and or a few months of age to get a
cochlear implant to receive cochlear
implants at age 65 they did it one week
apart so they went through this together
and it is a beautiful very sensitive
portrayal of of that process of
assimilating to the realities of the
cochlear implant and making sense out of
the sounds that they received more
importantly it is a very important
chronicling of the individual variation
in that process because they both went
there are many deaf people who have
excelled in their lifetime who have
become some of them very famous and and
others not so but they’ve contributed
tremendously to all the disciplines from
art to science and probably the most
iconic of those is Helen Keller who is
pictured here and who undoubtably and it
was a remarkable brilliant woman
deaf and blind but she in her many in
her several books that she offered that
she authored she really shares with you
her philosophies and her experiences of
the reality of being deaf my mother when
she was a young woman met her and spoke
with her in sign language
signing being into her cupped hand a
little bit as you see here and she says
it was the most thrilling memorable
experience of her life a final thought
there is no template for me being deaf
just as there’s no template for being
hearing each of us is unique our
enduring challenge then is to
continually seek to understand to
appreciate and to support one another in
the choices that we make our unique choices that make up our lives thank you
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