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I've just finished watching the See Hear episode (Series 33, Episode 30 with Clive interviewing Paddy Ladd about cochlea implants.
Wow! That is completely not what I'd been told it was. It took me a while to click into Paddy's signing but I think I was following more of his tone (and cheating with subtitles) by the end!
Paddy was not the hardcore anti-hearing anti-oral-communication radical I had heard him described as recently. He was a calm, reasonable, rational and logical interviewee who's reasons for concern are entirely reasonable...
For example he outlined many of the reasons that the Deaf BSL using community had been concerned about cochlea implants in the 1980s. This was a time sign language using deaf people were growing as a community and fighting against the language, culture and education deprivation imposed on them by the hearing world. Cochlea implants threatened their community and culture as well as being promoted by entities which had historically not always been as ethical as they should have been.
Paddy talked about why he wrote the article "Oralism's Final Solution" in 1985 where he likened cochlea implants to wiping out of deaf people (I must try and get a full-text copy). It was clear to me this was a 2014 Paddy looking back at his 1985 article and putting it in context of the politics and the time. I can't tell if his views are different or if he can separate a personal distaste from a reality which isn't as scary as expected...
Paddy says he was always advocated for bilingualism as hearing aids have been around in various forms for nearly 100 years and he was never against that but felt cochlea implants are marketed as a way of making deaf people not deaf any more whereas his belief is a lot like mine which is we remain deaf regardless of our aided-hearing options/access etc.
Paddy talked of his early work as a deaf social worker and working with the often hearing families devastated by the news of their child's deafness. He was very very specific and seemed to understand just how devastating have a child diagnosed as deaf could be to families and the very scary and real challenges learning sign language is.
Paddy outlined very succinctly the reasons he felt the Politically Oralist agenda (my terms, nowt official) was harmful to everyone in the D/deaf communities. This focus on hearing and speech and absolute banning of sign language resulted in only the less-deaf children being able to succeed and being praised while the more-deaf children were ignored and regarded as failures. More-deaf children resented their less deaf peers and often deaf people of all levels would try and cover up signs of hearing/oralism from the Deaf political world for fear of being bullied by the people who were most cut out by oralism.
I think I agree with Paddy that a lot of the *ouch* in our D/deaf spaces "I don't like X deaf people cos I was bullied by them for a Y feature of my deafness" "I was an X deafie bullied by Y deafies so I don't like them" etc etc is absolutely because of political oralism which was how structural audism is often manifested. The personal pain is caused by the wider structural and institutional world in which we all live and are affected by.
I strongly believe that deaf people as individuals need to educate ourselves all round about different deaf cultures and communities as well as structural audism to put our personal *ouches* into context and try to understand one another's perspectives and experiences rather than the actually endless infighting!
Paddy talked a LOT about bilingualism and how he would like to see all deaf children given access to sign language so that we have a true choice in the deaf and hearing worlds. This is what I would like to have had for myself so this resonated with me. It is so much harder to learn sign language as an adult than as a child. I'd also say we should be given access to ranges of tools/options, lipreading, assertiveness, cueing, and anything else I've missed. Classes should be available for adults for reasonable cost or free for those of us who are deaf.
Also to my surprise Paddy wasn't hardcore on Deafhood being only for big D political British Sign Language as primary/preferred language deafies. He very clearly talked of deafhood changing and how new ideas contribute to that. The description he gave made me feel like *I* have a right to a deafhood.
Paddy talked about changes in the Deaf community with more and more using hearing aids (and hiding them less in Deaf space) and getting cochlea implants and still signing and stuff. He talked about people signing and speaking freely, removing competition and removing sense of shame for having aspects for hearing culture.
That to me seemed so pertinent. We're fighting cos we're competing. It's not a zero sum game. There are limited resources, but we could be working so much cleverer (and a lot kinder) with one another.
The episode also covered many people who don't really deafine (oh heck, typo, I'm leaving that one in cos it is apt) as Deaf or deaf/HOH but as a bit of both in different contexts. One of the case study people used the term SSH - sign, speak, hear - which I liked as a bit of all that works.
Paddy also talked a bit about WHO makes the decisions about deaf people, is it us, or is it the wider society? Are we included and involved in the processes. Focus should be on quality deaf education, analysis of achievement and creating an actually working model to work from without vested interests guiding agendas.
Paddy's views on genetic eradication of deafness were more like his 1985 views on cochlea implants as he felt this really was the final solution. He seemed more resigned to an inevitable but said that there needed to be clear thinking and full policies from deaf communities engaging with this. If BSL is protected properly as a language, this will matter less because UN Convention on Human Rights protects languages and their users.
I am not sure legal language protection means an awful lot in practice but this makes a lot more sense to me than some of the other reasons why BSL campaigners seem to think BSL is special in terms of basic rights to "communication support" and "education" compared to non signing options available and preferred/needed by many of us which I feel should be fought on a mostly shared platform not separated and divided ones!
I am less worried by genetics. Very few people's deafness is genetic. Only 13% of people are born with their impairments. There are people born deaf from non-genetic deafness or spurious genetic conditions. Fewer than 10% of deaf children are born to deaf parents meaning that most of the deaf community has been coming from non deaf homes. Thanks to vaccines I am of the last generation of infants deafened by Measles and Rubella; meningitis is down a great deal and there's greater awareness of symptoms. Some people are still deafened. Some of us still have random deafnesses. At this point I don't see genetic options being forced on people and like with cochlea implants I suspect the outcome won't quite be what any of us expect.
I am fascinated by the difference in how different deaf people/groups have perceived this See Hear episode. I felt it was largely positive. See Hear does have a BSL bias, some which I feel is fair enough and acknowledged and some which I think is claimed not to be a bias when it totally is (e.g. way presenter describes/praises a signing person vs a mostly-oral person in the summing up of random stuff).
By See Hear standards this episode was amazingly accepting of different models of deafhood! Then again, it promoted a bilingualism model that I would like as my own... For those deaf people who do not wish to use sign language I could see how it would be perceived differently...
I need to think about how to talk about deafhoods and the different lived experiences and needs and how to try and get us all playing nicely in the sandbox together, recognising, understanding and respecting one another's narratives, hurts and hopes. A lot to think about.
Wow! That is completely not what I'd been told it was. It took me a while to click into Paddy's signing but I think I was following more of his tone (and cheating with subtitles) by the end!
Paddy was not the hardcore anti-hearing anti-oral-communication radical I had heard him described as recently. He was a calm, reasonable, rational and logical interviewee who's reasons for concern are entirely reasonable...
For example he outlined many of the reasons that the Deaf BSL using community had been concerned about cochlea implants in the 1980s. This was a time sign language using deaf people were growing as a community and fighting against the language, culture and education deprivation imposed on them by the hearing world. Cochlea implants threatened their community and culture as well as being promoted by entities which had historically not always been as ethical as they should have been.
Paddy talked about why he wrote the article "Oralism's Final Solution" in 1985 where he likened cochlea implants to wiping out of deaf people (I must try and get a full-text copy). It was clear to me this was a 2014 Paddy looking back at his 1985 article and putting it in context of the politics and the time. I can't tell if his views are different or if he can separate a personal distaste from a reality which isn't as scary as expected...
Paddy says he was always advocated for bilingualism as hearing aids have been around in various forms for nearly 100 years and he was never against that but felt cochlea implants are marketed as a way of making deaf people not deaf any more whereas his belief is a lot like mine which is we remain deaf regardless of our aided-hearing options/access etc.
Paddy talked of his early work as a deaf social worker and working with the often hearing families devastated by the news of their child's deafness. He was very very specific and seemed to understand just how devastating have a child diagnosed as deaf could be to families and the very scary and real challenges learning sign language is.
Paddy outlined very succinctly the reasons he felt the Politically Oralist agenda (my terms, nowt official) was harmful to everyone in the D/deaf communities. This focus on hearing and speech and absolute banning of sign language resulted in only the less-deaf children being able to succeed and being praised while the more-deaf children were ignored and regarded as failures. More-deaf children resented their less deaf peers and often deaf people of all levels would try and cover up signs of hearing/oralism from the Deaf political world for fear of being bullied by the people who were most cut out by oralism.
I think I agree with Paddy that a lot of the *ouch* in our D/deaf spaces "I don't like X deaf people cos I was bullied by them for a Y feature of my deafness" "I was an X deafie bullied by Y deafies so I don't like them" etc etc is absolutely because of political oralism which was how structural audism is often manifested. The personal pain is caused by the wider structural and institutional world in which we all live and are affected by.
I strongly believe that deaf people as individuals need to educate ourselves all round about different deaf cultures and communities as well as structural audism to put our personal *ouches* into context and try to understand one another's perspectives and experiences rather than the actually endless infighting!
Paddy talked a LOT about bilingualism and how he would like to see all deaf children given access to sign language so that we have a true choice in the deaf and hearing worlds. This is what I would like to have had for myself so this resonated with me. It is so much harder to learn sign language as an adult than as a child. I'd also say we should be given access to ranges of tools/options, lipreading, assertiveness, cueing, and anything else I've missed. Classes should be available for adults for reasonable cost or free for those of us who are deaf.
Also to my surprise Paddy wasn't hardcore on Deafhood being only for big D political British Sign Language as primary/preferred language deafies. He very clearly talked of deafhood changing and how new ideas contribute to that. The description he gave made me feel like *I* have a right to a deafhood.
Paddy talked about changes in the Deaf community with more and more using hearing aids (and hiding them less in Deaf space) and getting cochlea implants and still signing and stuff. He talked about people signing and speaking freely, removing competition and removing sense of shame for having aspects for hearing culture.
That to me seemed so pertinent. We're fighting cos we're competing. It's not a zero sum game. There are limited resources, but we could be working so much cleverer (and a lot kinder) with one another.
The episode also covered many people who don't really deafine (oh heck, typo, I'm leaving that one in cos it is apt) as Deaf or deaf/HOH but as a bit of both in different contexts. One of the case study people used the term SSH - sign, speak, hear - which I liked as a bit of all that works.
Paddy also talked a bit about WHO makes the decisions about deaf people, is it us, or is it the wider society? Are we included and involved in the processes. Focus should be on quality deaf education, analysis of achievement and creating an actually working model to work from without vested interests guiding agendas.
Paddy's views on genetic eradication of deafness were more like his 1985 views on cochlea implants as he felt this really was the final solution. He seemed more resigned to an inevitable but said that there needed to be clear thinking and full policies from deaf communities engaging with this. If BSL is protected properly as a language, this will matter less because UN Convention on Human Rights protects languages and their users.
I am not sure legal language protection means an awful lot in practice but this makes a lot more sense to me than some of the other reasons why BSL campaigners seem to think BSL is special in terms of basic rights to "communication support" and "education" compared to non signing options available and preferred/needed by many of us which I feel should be fought on a mostly shared platform not separated and divided ones!
I am less worried by genetics. Very few people's deafness is genetic. Only 13% of people are born with their impairments. There are people born deaf from non-genetic deafness or spurious genetic conditions. Fewer than 10% of deaf children are born to deaf parents meaning that most of the deaf community has been coming from non deaf homes. Thanks to vaccines I am of the last generation of infants deafened by Measles and Rubella; meningitis is down a great deal and there's greater awareness of symptoms. Some people are still deafened. Some of us still have random deafnesses. At this point I don't see genetic options being forced on people and like with cochlea implants I suspect the outcome won't quite be what any of us expect.
I am fascinated by the difference in how different deaf people/groups have perceived this See Hear episode. I felt it was largely positive. See Hear does have a BSL bias, some which I feel is fair enough and acknowledged and some which I think is claimed not to be a bias when it totally is (e.g. way presenter describes/praises a signing person vs a mostly-oral person in the summing up of random stuff).
By See Hear standards this episode was amazingly accepting of different models of deafhood! Then again, it promoted a bilingualism model that I would like as my own... For those deaf people who do not wish to use sign language I could see how it would be perceived differently...
I need to think about how to talk about deafhoods and the different lived experiences and needs and how to try and get us all playing nicely in the sandbox together, recognising, understanding and respecting one another's narratives, hurts and hopes. A lot to think about.
