Models of deafness

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The three models of deafness are rooted in either social or biological sciences. These are the cultural model, the social model, and themedical (or infirmity) model. 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. [1] 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. [2] The social model seeks to explain difficulties experienced by deaf individuals that are due to their environment. [3]

Contents

Cultural Model

Within the cultural model of deafness, Deaf people see themselves as a linguistic and cultural minority community rather than a "disability group". [2] Advocates of Deaf culture use a capital "D" to distinguish cultural Deafness from deafness as a pathology. [4]

Deaf culture is distinct in that the inability to hear is not seen as a "loss" or something that negatively impacts an individual's quality of life. It is an asset of and for the Deaf community to be deaf in behavior, values, knowledge and fluency in sign language. The experience of the Deaf being a language minority is comparable to other minorities' native languages being important to group identification and the preservation of their culture. [4] Deaf clubs (such as NAD- The National Association of the Deaf) and Deaf schools have played large roles in the preservation of sign language and Deaf culture. [5] Residential schools for deaf children serve as a vital link in the transmission of the rich culture and language, seeing as they are ideal environments for children to acquire and master sign language and pass on Deaf cultural values. [6] Like all educational settings, these environments are key to providing deaf children valuable life lessons and skills that will help them prosper in any environment they may find themselves in.

Rather than embrace the view that deafness is a "personal tragedy", the Deaf community contrasts the medical model of deafness by seeing all aspects of the deaf experience as positive. The birth of a deaf child is seen as a cause for celebration. [3] Deaf people point to the perspective on child rearing they share with hearing people. For example, hearing parents may feel that they relate to their hearing child because of their experience and intimate understanding of the hearing state of being. It follows that a Deaf parent will have easier experiences raising a deaf child since Deaf parents have an intimate understanding of the deaf state of being. Evidence of Deaf parental success is revealed in scholastic achievement. Deaf children who have Deaf parents that communicate in sign language from birth, generally perform better in their academics than other deaf children with hearing parents. [7] This includes children who adapted using speech and lipreading, prosthetic devices such as the cochlear implants, hearing aid technology, and artificial language systems such as Signing Exact English and Cued Speech. [7] Deaf children acquiring sign languages from birth also reach language milestones at similar rates to their hearing counterparts, unlike deaf children born to hearing parents acquiring speech. [8]

Members of the Deaf community define deafness as a matter of culturally determined behaviors rather than an audiological factor. [9] Thus, those within the Deaf community tend to be, but are not limited to, deaf people, especially congenitally deaf people whose primary language is the sign language of their nation or community, as well as their hearing or deaf children (hearing children of Deaf adults are typically called CODAs: Child of Deaf adult), families, friends and other members of their social networks. This cultural model of deafness represents the natural evolution of the social networks of a minority language group. From the conceptual framework of the cultural model come implicit questions, such as: "How is deafness influenced by the physical and social environment in which it is embedded? What are the interdependent values, mores, art forms, traditions, organizations, and language that characterize this culture?"

Social Model

The social model of deafness stems from the social model of disability. The concept of social disability was created by people who are disabled themselves, their families, friends, and associated social and political networks. Professionals in the human services fields and the social sciences greatly contributed to the social model. This model describes a person's disability on the basis of two factors:

  1. the physical or mental traits that cause this disability
  2. their environment, as it is influenced by the perception of others. [10]

Through this lens individuals who are deaf are considered disabled due to their inability to hear, which hearing counterparts in their surroundings have historically viewed as a disadvantage. [11] Deaf people may also have other disabilities. People with disabilities affirm that the design of the environment often disables them. In more accessible environments where those that are deaf have access to language that is not only spoken they are disabled less, or not at all. Areas where hearing and deaf individuals interact, called contact zones, often leave deaf individuals at a disadvantage because of the environment being tailored to suit the needs of the hearing counterpart. [12] The history of Martha's Vineyard, when looking specifically at Martha's Vineyard Sign Language, supports this notion. At one point in time, the deaf population on the island was so great that it was commonplace for hearing residents to know and use both signed and spoken language to communicate with their neighbors. In this environmental design, it was not "bad" or "disabling" if one was not able to hear in order to communicate. With certain disabilities, medical intervention can improve subsequent health issues. This is true to parts of the deaf population, as in some cases hearing can be gained with the assistance of medical technologies. The social model acknowledges the hard truth that medical intervention does not address societal issues that prevail - regardless of its extent or success. [10]

In addition to changing environments from disabling to enabling atmospheres, advocates of the social model support the complete integration of disabled people into society. [13] They encourage maximum integration with peers who are not disabled by their environment, especially, but not exclusively, in the school setting. Ultimately, the goal of proponents of the social model is to ensure all people are fully able to enjoy "all human rights and fundamental freedoms". [14] The social model of disability's ideology of "all-inclusive" school environments is not adhered to in the cultural model. Residential schools separate deaf and hard of hearing children from their hearing counterparts. The existence of these schools demonstrate an example of respecting and embracing the totality of the deaf experience rather than dismissing it. While the social model's promotion of inclusion at every level is a great principle, it may not always be the best environment in practice. In the case of deafness, there is a lot a child can miss in a mainstreamed schooling environment. In a poorly constructed mainstreamed environment, fostering relationships with classmates may be difficult and auditory important material shared verbally by teachers may be missed. As a result, the child may fall behind both academically and socially. [15] In residential school settings, these challenges may not be experienced to the same degree, and would allow for deaf children's social and academic lives to instead flourish.

Medical Model

The medical model of deafness originates from medical, social welfare and majority cultural notions of the absence of the ability to hear as being an illness or a physical disability. It stems from a more comprehensive and far-reaching medical model of disability. [2] Under the perspective that deafness is an impairment, the inability to hear interferes with a person's ability to respond to environmental cues, to communicate, and to enjoy aspects of mainstream culture such as music. [4] People who experience hearing loss after acquiring a mastery of spoken language as well as those who are hard-of-hearing commonly identify with this model.

Within the medical model deafness is conceptualized from a "personal tragedy" stance, indicating that it should be avoided, eradicated, or normalized by all possible means. [16] Often, the attitudes of professionals own assumptions of deafness as tragedy promote responses of loss; thus, hearing parents may experience diagnosis of their child's deafness as a tragedy with reactions of grief. [1] Similarly, common reactions such as stress and anger are not necessarily understandable psychological responses to deafness, but may result from situations in which parents have not encountered in others an adequate response to their needs and questions. [1]

While medical ethics and law dictate that it is up to the patient (or the patient's legal representative) to decide the treatments he or she wishes, the press and professional literature are increasingly normalizing the discussion regarding using cochlear implants, oral education, and mainstream placement; [2] all being popular choices under the medical model of deafness. The medical model suggests that, overall, the effects of deafness may be lessened through the use of technology such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, assistive listening devices, and lip reading. [4] Similarly, doctors and scientists who engage in research are doing so simply because there is demand for information and for techniques which can restore hearing. The view that deafness is a "disability" also has economic consequences in political environments concerned with social welfare. It is the basis on which the governments in many developed countries provide financial support for the cost of cochlear implants and other therapies.

Under the medical model of deafness, implicit questions may naturally arise, such as: "By what criteria and by whom is the impairment construed as an infirmity; how did the infirmity arise; what are the risks and benefits of the available treatment, if any; what can be done to minimize the disabling effects of the infirmity?"

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cochlear implant</span> Prosthesis

A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted neuroprosthesis that provides a person who has moderate-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss with sound perception. With the help of therapy, cochlear implants may allow for improved speech understanding in both quiet and noisy environments. A CI bypasses acoustic hearing by direct electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve. Through everyday listening and auditory training, cochlear implants allow both children and adults to learn to interpret those signals as speech and sound.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deaf culture</span> Culture of deaf persons

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 coined the term "Deaf Culture" and he was the first to discuss analogies between Deaf and hearing cultures in his appendices C/D of the 1965 Dictionary of American 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.

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. Tom L. Humphries coined the term in his doctoral dissertation in 1975, 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.

A child of deaf adult, often known by the acronym CODA, is a person who was raised by one or more deaf parents or legal guardians. Ninety percent of children born to deaf adults can hear normally, resulting in a significant and widespread community of CODAs around the world, although whether the child is hearing, deaf, or hard of hearing has no effect on the definition. The acronym KODA is sometimes used to refer to CODAs under the age of 18.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deaf education</span> Education of the deaf and hard of hearing

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.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deaf rights movement</span>

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.

The deaf community in Australia is a diverse cultural and linguistic minority group. Deaf communities have many distinctive cultural characteristics, some of which are shared across many different countries. These characteristics include language, values and behaviours. The Australian deaf community relies primarily on Australian Sign Language, or Auslan. Those in the Australian deaf community experience some parts of life differently than those in the broader hearing world, such as access to education and health care.

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.


Deafness in Poland refers to the Deaf communities in Poland and education around their culture and language. Poland has a recorded history of DHH people, dating back to 1817. About 15.1% of Polish people in Poland say they have hearing loss. Polski Język Migowy is the main signed language in Poland.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deafness in the Windward Islands</span>

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.

South Korea's Deaf population began to come to prominence in recorded history in the late 19th century with the implementation of special education. Since then, they have gained government recognition and legal rights.

The Filipino Sign Language (FSL) is the official language of education for deaf Filipinos, which number around 121,000 as of 2000.

References

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  14. ↑ "Preamble | United Nations Enable". www.un.org. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  15. ↑ Nunes, Terezinha; Pretzlik, Ursula; Olsson, Jenny (2001). "Deaf children's social relationships in mainstream schools". Deafness & Education International. 3 (3): 123–136. doi:10.1002/dei.106. ISSN   1557-069X.
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