Audism as described by deaf activists is a form of discrimination directed against deaf people, which may include those diagnosed as deaf from birth, or otherwise.[1]Tom L. Humphries coined the term in an unpublished manuscript in 1975, which he later reiterated in his doctoral project in 1977,[2] but it did not start to catch on until Harlan Lane used it in his writing. Humphries originally applied audism to individual attitudes and practices; whereas Lane broadened the term to include oppression of deaf people.
Linguistic audism can occur by banning use of sign languages, such as the 1880 Milan conference when signed language was banned in schools.[3] Many schools throughout the world engaged in such prohibition and some continue to do so. Audism may also be found in deaf education and in other corporate institutions and groups that deal with deafness. In these cases the educators, administrators, and professionals within these organizations behave in a way that is meant to dominate or marginalize the deaf community.[4]
Dysconscious audism favors what is normal for hearing people. This limits deaf culture and pride, by creating an environment in which deaf people must conform to the ways of hearing people. It greatly impacts deaf education in terms of shunning sign languages in favor of communication that is based on spoken languages, and more acceptable to hearing people.[5]
Additionally, deaf people can practice forms of discrimination against members of their own community, based on what they believe is acceptable behavior, use of language, or social association. Dr. Genie Gertz explored examples of such audism in American society in her published dissertation.[6] Audism can also occur between groups of deaf people, with some who choose not to use a sign language and not to identify with deaf culture considering themselves to be superior to those who do, or members of the deaf community asserting superiority over deaf people who use listening and spoken language to communicate. Dr. Frank P. Adams investigated manifestation of dysconscious Audism as Crab Mentality and implicit discriminatory attitudes in his published dissertation [7] This also applies to members of the deaf community who obtain cochlear implants. For several decades, cochlear implants have caused disputes within the deaf community regarding the concept of the deaf identity.[8] In a show of audism from both sides, deaf individuals may shun those with cochlear implants for not being "deaf enough", while those with the implants may look down on those who choose not to get them.
Active audism is when a person knowingly engages in audist behavior. The person knows the effects of audism, yet still engages in this behavior and has an audist attitude. Passive audism is when a person is engaging in audist behavior, yet does not have knowledge about the deaf community's values. Passive audists do not think about how their actions or words concern deaf individuals, hearing individuals, or sign language.[citation needed]
Ben Bahan describes audism in two forms: overt and covert audism. Overt audism is a term used to define deaf people and their culture as inferior to hearing culture. In the medical field, this idea can manifest by looking at deafness as something to be fixed, but can also be applied to practices such as audiology, speech therapy, medicine psychology, social work and other fields. This does not mean that all institutions inherently practice audism but that they are revert to audiological tendencies. These two forms illustrate the exclusion of deaf people from specific institutions or practices. Bahan notes inventions such as telephones, radios, or a lunch bell can be considered audist because they are sound-based technologies.[9]
History
The principles and ideas behind audism have been experienced by the deaf community for many centuries, but the term "audism" was first coined in 1975 by deaf scholar Tom Humphries in his unpublished essay. Humphries originally defined audism as, "the notion that one is superior based on one's ability to hear or behave in the manner of one who hears".[2] Since then, other scholars, such as Harlan Lane in his book, Mask of Benevolence,[10] have attempted to further expand on Humphries' definition to include different levels of audism: individual, institutional, metaphysical, and laissez-faire.[11] As Humphries' definition stands, it only incorporates individual audism, which includes deaf jokes, hate crimes, and low classroom expectations of deaf people.
The idea that there is systemic, or institutional, audism within society was originally proposed in Harlan Lane's Mask of Benevolence,[10] as an extension of David T. Wellman's concept of institutional racism.[2] It was further expanded by H-Dirksen Bauman, in Audism: Exploring the Metaphysics of Oppression, and again, by Richard Eckert and Amy Rowley, in Audism: A Theory and Practice of Audiocentric Privilege, and institutional audism is now described as, "a structural system of exploitative advantage that focuses on and perpetuates the subordination of deaf Communities of origin, language, and culture".[11]
Despite scholars' best efforts to incorporate all aspects of audism, still, there is another important facet of audism. Scholars have noted that deaf people who used their voice had more societal rights than those deaf people who did not have the ability to speak. In attempt to quantify this relationship, Bauman extended the concept of phonocentrism proposed by Jacques Derrida, "the supremacy of speech and repression of nonphonetic forms of communication", and developed the term, metaphysical audism. Metaphysical audism refers to the idea of language being a distinguishing factor in what makes us human; however, with metaphysical audism, language becomes confused with speech, and in turn, speech becomes linked to being human.[2]
Origins of audism
The seeds of audism were reflected in the lack of early documentation and a misunderstanding of deaf people and their language. Limited evidence can be provided about the treatment of deaf individuals by ancient civilizations. However, the documentation that is provided shows a resistance towards deaf people as a functioning part of society. Aristotle's Poetics alluded that those labeled as "disabled" would be put to death for the benefit of the rest of society. [citation needed] During the time of the Renaissance, efforts to educate deaf individuals posed complications due to the lack of literacy from the vast majority of society, deaf and hearing alike. In New England during the pilgrimage to America, any variant from the category of the norm was grounds for witchcraft or sorcery.[12]
Richard Eckert coined the term laissez-faire audism to indicate the modern state of acknowledging members the deaf community's humanity, but denying their independence, for example through pediatric cochlear implantation.[11]
Audism in the educational system
Audiological ideologies have shaped curriculum within deaf Education. Because deaf people make up 1% of the American population[citation needed], teachers are less equipped to work with the needs of deaf or hard of hearing students. In the US, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Education for all Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) allow deaf children to more easily participate in mainstream public education if their families so choose. These acts provide education policies that reinforced integration of deaf individuals into hearing society. Signed languages were generally replaced with Manually Coded English as a method of communication, and deaf and hard of hearing students were placed with hearing students in hopes that this would further speech development.[citation needed] Within these mainstream public schools deaf students face challenges such as needing to focus on a computer or a board while keeping up with the class conversation.[12] Additionally, due to the design of some of these schools curriculums, deaf students are more likely to fall behind in reading levels compared to their hearing classmates. This gap in reading level between deaf students and their hearing peers is also likely to grow as they progress through school.[12]
Institutions such as the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) continue to work with U.S. Officials to improve these policies, claiming these educational practices were audist and create precedence of one language over another by implementing English as the primary language for instruction.[13]
Audism in the legal system
Lack of access to communication in trials of deaf individuals has resulted in mistrials attributed to factors including interpreter and CART provider error and unqualified interpretation, all contributing to an overall lack of understanding or misunderstanding by the judge and members of the jury. These factors have also led to unlawful sentences in some criminal cases. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires deaf individuals be given equal access in the courtroom through a qualified interpreter. The law establishes stricter guidelines for interpreting licensure, aiming to reduce the number of errors in the courtroom.[14]
Conversely, a deaf man convicted of rape in Norway successfully appealed for a shorter sentence by arguing his deafness constituted a mitigating circumstance, reducing his degree of culpability for the crime. The court's decision angered the Norwegian deaf community, which perceived the rationale behind the reduced sentence as patronizing, ignoring the capacity of deaf individuals to reason and thus to be held fully accountable and to receive the same sentences as other, hearing, Norwegian citizens.[15]
Another example of audism in the legal system, was what happened to a man by the name of Magdiel Sanchez. This man was shot and killed in front of his house by a police officer for approaching them with a metal pipe, which according to his neighbors he used to communicate and ward off stray dogs.
According to a news article from CNN there was a hit and run committed by Magdiel Sanchez's father (he did not hit a person) and when the police arrived at the scene, Magdiel was on his porch and began to walk towards the officers with a metal pipe. The officers Sgt Christopher Barnes and, Lt Matthew Lindsey, yelled for Sanchez to drop his pipe; but being deaf he could not hear them. Sanchez's neighbors who were on the scene, tried to tell the officers that Magdiel could not hear them because he was deaf.[16]
While this may not be exactly audism, it does show that the legal system did not have any protocol for communicating with deaf people; nor did they have someway to identify, if a person is deaf or hard of hearing, such as signing "are you deaf?" to a person who does not respond to verbal demands.
Domestic crimes committed among and against deaf individuals tend to have a lower investigation rate than domestic crime between hearing individuals. A study shows that deaf women have a higher rate of abuse than hearing women, although the disparity has attracted little attention for further research.[17]
Among deaf individuals incarcerated in Texas in 2004, 20% were judged "linguistically incompetent", unable to either understand the charges they faced or to meaningfully participate in the creation of their defense, while another 30% were "adjudicatively incompetent, unable to understand the legal proceedings without targeted instructional intervention. These statuses were the results of either lack of fluency in any language or functional illiteracy, respectively. As a result, it is unlikely that these deaf inmates had received their constitutional right to due process of law. However, all deaf inmates studied had nevertheless been convicted and incarcerated, possible violations of their constitutional rights. Notably, deaf individuals who were either ASL-dominant bilinguals equally comfortable in both American Sign Language (ASL) and English were the least likely to fall into either category and therefore the most likely to have received due process.[18]
Audism in linguistics
Audism can be closely linked to the term linguicism, or ideologies that pertain to the way in which an institution is facilitated and regulated in favor of a dominant culture through the basis of language. Linguicism highlights spoken language to be a part of the dominant culture and signed languages to be of the minority culture, expanding that those who use spoken language are provided with more accessible economic, social and political resources which give them an advantage over those who use signed languages.[19]
Audism is linked to phonocentric values in defining linguistics. Linguistic terminology has been determined by sound based methodologies, for instance the concept of linearity in spoken languages fails to recognize the grammatical structures of visual-manual-kinesthetic based languages. Additionally, early twentieth century linguists determined those without sound-based languages did not possess any capacity for language while others romanticized sign languages or believed them to be primitive. However, additional linguists argue this claim minimizes the advances in deaf studies and the recognition of signed languages as a part of the linguistic lexicon.[20]
For centuries, there has been controversy over whether linguistic theory pertains to signed languages. It was not until William Stokoe contested this argument and found structural evidence that linked ASL to linguistic rules that ASL was finally recognized as a language. These claims, however, are still contested by some lawmakers and educators due to the inability to recognize the rules of visual-modal languages and misconceptions of their origins outside of sound-based languages.[13]
Additional resources pertaining to audism
Personal accounts of audism have been documented from documentaries such as Audism Unveiled, a movie that discusses the oppression of deaf people and their personal struggles with audism. Other accounts can be seen through the research of academics such as Peter Hauser whose TedTalk illustrated the detriments audism has on the identity. His studied illustrated a connection between the lack of exposure to deaf culture and a deaf person's self esteem.[21]
Controversy
Activists in the deaf community claim that audists harm deaf culture by considering deafness a disability, rather than as a cultural difference.[22] Some deaf activists assert that cochlear implants are a tool of cultural genocide.[23]
As many as 95% of deaf children in the US are born to hearing parents.[24]
Alexander Graham Bell – inventor of the telephone. An avid supporter of eugenics, he published the essay Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race which condemned intermarriage between deaf individuals. He championed the oralist movement, his associated endeavors including pushing for the removal of sign language from deaf schools to be replaced with his own alphabet called "Visible Speech", and striving to cure deafness.[25]
Horace Mann founded the first school for the deaf in Connecticut but whose policies educational reform that pushed the oralist methods, such as a focus on lipreading and articulation in the education of deaf children.[26]
Garrick Mallery studied Indian culture and sign language for the Bureau of Ethnology in the Smithsonian Institution. Although he recognized the validity of modal languages, he argued that signed languages were inferior to oral languages on the basis that they could not be written down.[26]
The three models of deafness are rooted in either social or biological sciences. These are the cultural model, the social model, and themedicalmodel. The model through which the deaf person is viewed can impact how they are treated as well as their own self perception. In the cultural model, the Deaf belong to a culture in which they are neither infirm nor disabled, but rather have their own fully grammatical and natural language. In the medical model, deafness is viewed undesirable, and it is to the advantage of the individual as well as society as a whole to "cure" this condition. The social model seeks to explain difficulties experienced by deaf individuals that are due to their environment.
Deaf culture is the set of social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values, and shared institutions of communities that are influenced by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label, especially within the culture, the word deaf is often written with a capital D and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign. When used as a label for the audiological condition, it is written with a lower case d. Carl G. Croneberg was among the first to discuss analogies between Deaf and hearing cultures in his appendices C and D of the 1965 Dictionary of American Sign Language.
Harlan Lawson Lane was an American psychologist. Lane was the Matthews Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States, and founder of the Center for Research in Hearing, Speech, and Language. His research was focused on speech, Deaf culture, and sign language.
Oralism is the education of deaf students through oral language by using lip reading, speech, and mimicking the mouth shapes and breathing patterns of speech. Oralism came into popular use in the United States around the late 1860s. In 1867, the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts, was the first school to start teaching in this manner. Oralism and its contrast, manualism, manifest differently in deaf education and are a source of controversy for involved communities. Listening and Spoken Language, a technique for teaching deaf children that emphasizes the child's perception of auditory signals from hearing aids or cochlear implants, is how oralism continues on in the current day.
Jane Fernandes is an American educator and social justice advocate. As of August 2021, Fernandes is the President of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. She previously served as president of Guilford College from 2014 to 2021.
In the United States, deaf culture was born in Connecticut in 1817 at the American School for the Deaf, when a deaf teacher from France, Laurent Clerc, was recruited by Thomas Gallaudet to help found the new institution. Under the guidance and instruction of Clerc in language and ways of living, deaf American students began to evolve their own strategies for communication and for living, which became the kernel for the development of American Deaf culture.
Deaf education is the education of students with any degree of hearing loss or deafness. This may involve, but does not always, individually-planned, systematically-monitored teaching methods, adaptive materials, accessible settings, and other interventions designed to help students achieve a higher level of self-sufficiency and success in the school and community than they would achieve with a typical classroom education. There are different language modalities used in educational setting where students get varied communication methods. A number of countries focus on training teachers to teach deaf students with a variety of approaches and have organizations to aid deaf students.
Prelingual deafness refers to deafness that occurs before learning speech or language. Speech and language typically begin to develop very early with infants saying their first words by age one. Therefore, prelingual deafness is considered to occur before the age of one, where a baby is either born deaf or loses hearing before the age of one. This hearing loss may occur for a variety of reasons and impacts cognitive, social, and language development.
The Deaf community over time has worked to improve the educational system for those who are Deaf and hard of hearing. The history of Deaf education dates back to Ancient Egypt where the deaf were respected and revered. In contrast, those who were deaf in Ancient Greece were considered a burden to society and put to death. The educational aspects of the deaf community has evolved tremendously and still continues to grow as the science of linguistics, educational research, new technologies, and laws, on local, national, and international levels are steadily being introduced. Strategies, however, remain controversial.
Robert J. Hoffmeister is associate professor emeritus and former director of the Center for the Study of Communication & Deafness at Boston University. He is most known for his book, Journey into the Deaf World. He is also known for supporting the American deaf community and deaf education.
Benjamin James Bahan is a professor of ASL and Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University and a member of the deaf community. He is an influential figure in American Sign Language literature as a storyteller and writer of deaf culture. He is known for the stories "The Ball Story" and "Birds of a Different Feather". He is known for writing the book A Journey into the Deaf-World (1996) with Robert J. Hoffmeister and Harlan Lane. Bahan also co-wrote and co-directed the film Audism Unveiled (2008) with his colleague Dirksen Bauman.
The history of deaf education in the United States began in the early 1800s when the Cobbs School of Virginia, an oral school, was established by William Bolling and John Braidwood, and the Connecticut Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, a manual school, was established by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc. When the Cobbs School closed in 1816, the manual method, which used American Sign Language, became commonplace in deaf schools for most of the remainder of the century. In the late 1800s, schools began to use the oral method, which only allowed the use of speech, as opposed to the manual method previously in place. Students caught using sign language in oral programs were often punished. The oral method was used for many years until sign language instruction gradually began to come back into deaf education.
Language acquisition is a natural process in which infants and children develop proficiency in the first language or languages that they are exposed to. The process of language acquisition is varied among deaf children. Deaf children born to deaf parents are typically exposed to a sign language at birth and their language acquisition follows a typical developmental timeline. However, at least 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents who use a spoken language at home. Hearing loss prevents many deaf children from hearing spoken language to the degree necessary for language acquisition. For many deaf children, language acquisition is delayed until the time that they are exposed to a sign language or until they begin using amplification devices such as hearing aids or cochlear implants. Deaf children who experience delayed language acquisition, sometimes called language deprivation, are at risk for lower language and cognitive outcomes. However, profoundly deaf children who receive cochlear implants and auditory habilitation early in life often achieve expressive and receptive language skills within the norms of their hearing peers; age at implantation is strongly and positively correlated with speech recognition ability. Early access to language through signed language or technology have both been shown to prepare children who are deaf to achieve fluency in literacy skills.
Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written with a lower case d. It later came to be used in a cultural context to refer to those who primarily communicate through sign language regardless of hearing ability, often capitalized as Deaf and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign. The two definitions overlap but are not identical, as hearing loss includes cases that are not severe enough to impact spoken language comprehension, while cultural Deafness includes hearing people who use sign language, such as children of deaf adults.
The Deaf rights movement encompasses a series of social movements within the disability rights and cultural diversity movements that encourages deaf and hard of hearing to push society to adopt a position of equal respect for them. Acknowledging that those who were Deaf or hard of hearing had rights to obtain the same things as those hearing lead this movement. Establishing an educational system to teach those with Deafness was one of the first accomplishments of this movement. Sign language, as well as cochlear implants, has also had an extensive impact on the Deaf community. These have all been aspects that have paved the way for those with Deafness, which began with the Deaf Rights movement.
Language deprivation in deaf and hard-of-hearing children is a delay in language development that occurs when sufficient exposure to language, spoken or signed, is not provided in the first few years of a deaf or hard of hearing child's life, often called the critical or sensitive period. Early intervention, parental involvement, and other resources all work to prevent language deprivation. Children who experience limited access to language—spoken or signed—may not develop the necessary skills to successfully assimilate into the academic learning environment. There are various educational approaches for teaching deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Decisions about language instruction is dependent upon a number of factors including extent of hearing loss, availability of programs, and family dynamics.
Language exposure for children is the act of making language readily available and accessible during the critical period for language acquisition. Deaf and hard of hearing children, when compared to their hearing peers, tend to face more hardships when it comes to ensuring that they will receive accessible language during their formative years. Therefore, deaf and hard of hearing children are more likely to have language deprivation which causes cognitive delays. Early exposure to language enables the brain to fully develop cognitive and linguistic skills as well as language fluency and comprehension later in life. Hearing parents of deaf and hard of hearing children face unique barriers when it comes to providing language exposure for their children. Yet, there is a lot of research, advice, and services available to those parents of deaf and hard of hearing children who may not know how to start in providing language.
Treatment depends on the specific cause if known as well as the extent, type, and configuration of the hearing loss. Most hearing loss results from age and noise, is progressive, and irreversible. There are currently no approved or recommended treatments to restore hearing; it is commonly managed through using hearing aids. A few specific types of hearing loss are amenable to surgical treatment. In other cases, treatment involves addressing underlying pathologies, but any hearing loss incurred may be permanent.
According to The Deaf Unit Cairo, there are approximately 1.2 million deaf and hard of hearing individuals in Egypt aged five and older. Deafness can be detected in certain cases at birth or throughout childhood in terms of communication delays and detecting language deprivation. The primary language used amongst the deaf population in Egypt is Egyptian Sign Language (ESL) and is widely used throughout the community in many environments such as schools, deaf organizations, etc. This article focuses on the many different aspects of Egyptian life and the impacts it has on the deaf community.
The Windward Islands are a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea that include Dominica, Martinique, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Grenada. A variety of cultures, beliefs, languages, and views of deafness exist on the islands.
1 2 Rosen, Russell S. (2008). "American Sign Language as a Foreign Language in U.S. High Schools: State of the Art". The Modern Language Journal. 92 (1): 10–38. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2008.00684.x. JSTOR25172990.
↑ Couch, Kymberly Marie, "The Impact of American Sign Language Interpreter Licensure Laws on d/Deaf Defendants in Criminal Cases" (2017). Boise State University Theses and Dissertations. 1248. doi:10.18122/B2712W.
↑ Mitchell, R. E.; Karchmer, M.A. (2004). "Chasing the Mythical Ten Percent: Parental Hearing Status of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students in the United States". Sign Language Studies. 4 (2): 138–163. doi:10.1353/sls.2004.0005. S2CID145578065.
↑ Matthews, Cate (2014-10-06). "This Beauty Vlogger Is Hard Of Hearing, And She's Stepping Up Her Game On YouTube". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
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