Deaf Community . . . Autistic Community . . .
Profound hearing loss, and the problems it brings are totally different than AS, even though they sometimes seem related. It is very maddening, if you have a partial hearing loss, to hear something one way (even with ear-level aids) and then to say it, and be laughed at. Most hearing-impared people are NT, and they solve their problems in groups (strength in numbers), but unlss you have some radical new theory, don't confuse profound hearing loss with AS. They are two different phenomenon, and should be treated very differently.
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richardbenson
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nominalist
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I don't think most people would suggest that deafness and ASDs should be conflated. I know that I, as a sociologist, am very careful to focus on the particularity of experience and the specificity of oppression. Each category of oppression needs to examined on its own. Connections between those categories need to be made very carefully.
Nonetheless, just as there are differences between the oppressions, there are also similarities. Understanding those similarities can allow people, in spite of their differences in experience, to be willing to work with each other to challenge oppression.
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Mark A. Foster, Ph.D. (retired tenured sociology professor)
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The best experience I had with the Signing Community was when I was with the Deaf-BLIND in 2003. They read the signs by feeling them with their hands. I actually like tactile signing better than visual signing by now. The problem is...the Deaf-Blind are too bothered by my symptoms. They all pushed me away in 2004 and have wanted nothing to do with me for 3 years. I joined DBSocial ListServ 3 times trying to find new DB friends, and many of the people refused to learn about my condition. They tried to tell me they were nice, but the way they told me to keep quiet about my condition was very rude of them. Heather Schoenwald on another ListServ list told me the Deaf-Blind are "like a big family & will kick my a** out". Well she had no business telling me that. So now I feel like I'm committed to a lifetime of rejection from the Signing Community unless I sign with other autistic signers AND find a psychiatrist who knows sign.
The Deaf view their inability to hear as a mere difference to be proud of. I think we should view our conditions as mere differences to be proud of. I also agree with the comments about awareness days. Our conditions are NOT widely known about outside of our community and that is such a damn shame!
3 years ago on TV I saw a blind autistic boy reading tactile signs from his sighted Deaf parents. Autistic people like him are who I really wanna meet, if I can't get back with the Deaf-Blind.
Most Deaf-Blind people don't work at all. Quite a few work PART-time but NONE work full-time. So, the Deaf-Blind are the best signers to sign with. They give human touch in ways that feel very good to me. I miss the Deaf-Blind, but I must move out of state to get back with them and I don't know where to move to get back with the Deaf-Blind. Another member of WP told me to try Milwaukee, WI, but the weather up there is not really good for me. They get so much snow in the winter time and I might not be able to go out sometimes if I moved there.
I actually taught myself to read tactile signs in 2003. It's easy for me cuz my visual & tactile systems work very well together, so as long as I've seen something, and it's safe to touch, I can also recognize it by touching it with my hands. Of course the signs of ASL are safe to touch.
Since I was 18 I've been more and more comfortable signing and less & less comfortable speaking. I am still fairly comfortable with written English though, so I went ahead & joined this forum cuz it uses written English. Plus I still use my TTY for telecommunications over the phone. I REFUSE to get a videophone cuz I can only read signs either close-up visually or tactually like the Deaf-Blind do. Besides that I only wanna read signs tactually anyway, and I can only do that in-person.
Lastly, I strongly agree that when you become non-verbal and you need a way to communicate, ASL is the way. I LOVE ASL ! I am such a proud signer. I just want new friends to sign with, and I prefer that they read me tactually, since I will be reading them tactually even though my visual impairment is only borderline. I am mostly nonverbal, and someday I will make sure I become completely non-verbal. Healthcare providers & legal officials who don't know sign need to start paying my interpreters! I should NOT have to pay my interpreters!
Hey, i'm glad i found another autistic who loves signing soo much, i feel i can express myself so much easier through sign rather then verbal. I still have so many problems speaking, so signing always comes in handy for me. I live in nj, and i know a couple deaf/blind people, they usually come to the deaf events a lot, and i was going to work at a center for the blind, but ended up having health problems that stopped me.
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nominalist
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I started a room on Paltalk the other day for people on the autism spectrum. This one guy came into the room while I was on mic. He said he was surprised that I sounded so intelligent. When I told him I was a college professor, he seemed totally baffled.
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Mark A. Foster, Ph.D. (retired tenured sociology professor)
36 domains/24 books: http://www.markfoster.net
Emancipated Autism: http://www.neurelitism.com
Institute for Dialectical metaRealism: http://dmr.institute
I've had the same thought.
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I'm deaf (well, I'm technically moderately late deafened but I'm culturally deaf) and I sign. Sometimes signing can be an easier way for me to express myself. But most of the time if I can't get my thoughts together they come out mixed up in sign as well as speech. Sometimes they come out more incomprehensable in ASL than they do speech because ASL is my A2 language (which is linguist terms for a person's second primary language, if they have one).
There are some similarties between deaf and AS but also many differences. Not all deaf want to hear just like not all aspies want to be neurotypical. Deaf people, like people with AS, are also more straightforward when we talk.
I found learning sign language was a lot easier for me than when I was a kid and I was learning to speak (English) eventhough the two languages are totally different. I think part of this is that deaf people were so willing to help me learn how to sign where English was one of those things I was just expected to pick up on automatically. They would tell me when I was signing something wrong. Many of my friends would tell me when I was signing too much like a hearing person and then tell me how to sign like a deaf person so that it would look more natural. They also helped me learn what each facial expression and non-verbal cue meant. (When I say "non-verbal" I don't mean signs- I mean other cues. ASL is the same as any other language and to say non-verbal kind of puts it into the catagory of gestures rather than the complex language that it is.) Another thing great about learning ASL is that everyone was willing to explain to me what different expressions meant and which words were best to choose to describe how I felt.
But I think deafness is also different from AS in a lot of ways. Deafness only affects your ability to hear- maybe talk as a consequnce of hearing. If you fall behind in life it's usually because you don't learn English well and someone either doesn't bother to teach you to sign or they prohibit it or you get sent off to a school for the deaf that doesn't really teach anything. AS is more complex. I think there's also far more varriation in they way people experience AS than the way deaf experience deafness.
As far as cochlear implants go- I don't want to have a hole drilled in my head. No thank you. I'm quite happy not hearing as much as I did when I was a kid. A world without sound can be much more peaceful. Another good thing is that when I'm on the bus and some bible or cult obsessed person comes up to me trying to preach and convert me I can just tell them in sign language that I'm deaf and that I don't want to use English; usually they give up and go away.
Also, while we're on the topic. I'm not hearing impaired. Mostly only people who are signing-impaired prefer that term. Deaf generally don't.
I started a room on Paltalk the other day for people on the autism spectrum. This one guy came into the room while I was on mic. He said he was surprised that I sounded so intelligent. When I told him I was a college professor, he seemed totally baffled.
I was doing errands with two friends a couple weeks ago. One is high functioning autistic and signs the other is neurotypical and only knows a few signs. My friend that signs as I were having an arguement that was partially signed and fully voiced about who should drive. He's an awful driver and so I wanted to drive eventhough I don't have my lincense. I was arguing that he may have a lincense but I'm the safer driver so I should drive. He told me that he should drive since he's lincesed. I told him that I've passed all the tests before but the only reason why I'm not licensed is because I decided I didn't want to drive so I didn't pay the fee. Then suddenly I feel my other friend taping my shoulder.
"OMG, I'm glad I don't drive.... They give you guys driver's licneses?!?! Isn't that dangerious?"
I like this discussion because I had one similar with my wife. One of our friends had his 3-y-old son a coclear implant. My first reaction was of disgust but thinking about it I don't know. I don't want a cure for sure, I don't want one for my wife and I don't one for my daughter, but we are all Aspie not with profound autism also a cure... what does it mean? If there is a cure for social anxiety without any collateral effect, we will take it, what's the problem. Simply if a cure, cure all, I don't want it because for me OUR autism give us more benefits than troubles, but about hearing? What's the benefits? I don't get them. My reaction to the coclear implant was about the pain to a so young child and possible problem related to it. If someone know the reasons to avoid it (not philosophical one! Real ones) I'll be pretty glad to listen because that things really stressed me.
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sartresue
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ImplaNT topic
Old resurrected thread. Now what brought this up? But I am glad to see stuff written by other minorities, as it gives me some insight into how they deal with the majority.
No add-ons for me thanks.
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Despite being at least partially hard of hearing, I do not get along with deaf people. They bug me, and I annoy them.
I think it is because they focus much more strongly on body language than even NTs.
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