Satoshi Fukushima

Last updated

Satoshi Fukushima
BornDecember 25, 1962  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg (age 60)
Kobe   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Awards
  • Yoshikawa Eiji Cultural Award (1996)  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Satoshi Fukushima (born 1962) is a Japanese researcher and advocate for people with disabilities. Blind since age nine and deaf from the age of eighteen, Fukushima was the first deafblind student to earn a degree from a Japanese university when he graduated from Tokyo Metropolitan University in 1987. Fukushima leads the Barrier-Free Laboratory, part of the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo; the research done by members of the lab's staff focuses on accessibility.

Contents

Early life and education

Satoshi Fukushima was born in Kobe on December 25, 1962. [1] [2] Fukushima developed an eye infection when he was five months old, and lost vision in his right eye when he was three years old. [1] He lost the sight in his left eye at age nine due to sympathetic ophthalmia. [3] After becoming fully blind, he transferred from a regular school to a school for the blind affiliated with the University of Tsukuba. [4] [1] His hearing decreased until he was deaf at age eighteen. [3]

Fukushima struggled to communicate, and he found the most difficult part of his deafblindness was being unable to share his thoughts with his family and friends. [3] In collaboration with his mother Reiko, he developed finger braille (yubitenji), a tactile communication method. [5] [6] In finger braille, the index, middle and ring fingers are used to mimic a Braille keyboard; finger braille users or interpreters tap onto both hands of the deafblind person. [5] [6]

In 1983, he passed the entrance examination for Tokyo Metropolitan University, becoming the first deafblind student to enroll in a university in Japan. [1] [3] Fukushima became the first deafblind person to graduate from college in Japan in 1987. [7] He completed the doctoral course in education in March 1992 from Tokyo Metropolitan University, withdrawing due to the expiration of the time limit for earning credits. [8] [1] In 2008, he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo. [8]

Research and advocacy

From April 1992 to March 1994, Fukushima was a special researcher for the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. [8] [1] He became an assistant professor in the Department of Social Science and Humanities at Tokyo Metropolitan University in 1996, and later that year began working as an associate professor in the education department of Kanazawa University. [8] He remained at Kanazawa University through March 2001. [1]

He became the first deafblind person to teach at the University of Tokyo in 2001. [9] He was hired as an associate professor to create a new academic program in disabilities studies. [10] The proposal to establish the new program faced mild resistance, but the faculty voted unanimously to hire Fukushima. [10] Fukushima heads the Barrier-free Laboratory, a unit consisting primarily of researchers with disabilities who conduct studies aiming to make people and society more accessible. [11]

Fukushima is the director of the Japan Deafblind Association, an organization which provides information, training, and support to deafblind people and their families. [1] He has also served as a representative to the World Federation of the Deafblind. [1]

Recognition

Fukushima and his mother Reiko Fukushima won the Yoshikawa Eiji Cultural Award in 1996. [1] In 2003, Fukushima was one of twenty-nine "Asian Heroes" selected by Time Asia magazine. [12] He was honored with the Kazuo Homma Cultural Award by the Japan Braille Library in 2015. [13]

Fukushima's biographical papers are located in the archives of the Rochester Institute of Technology. [7]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Keller</span> American author and activist (1880–1968)

Helen Adams Keller was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. Born in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she lost her sight and her hearing after a bout of illness when she was 19 months old. She then communicated primarily using home signs until the age of seven, when she met her first teacher and life-long companion Anne Sullivan. Sullivan taught Keller language, including reading and writing. After an education at both specialist and mainstream schools, Keller attended Radcliffe College of Harvard University and became the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Perkins School for the Blind, in Watertown, Massachusetts, was founded in 1829 and is the oldest school for the blind in the United States. It has also been known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deafblindness</span> Condition of little or no useful sight and little or no useful hearing

Deafblindness is the condition of little or no useful hearing and little or no useful sight. Different degrees of vision loss and auditory loss occur within each individual. Because of this inherent diversity, each deafblind individual's needs regarding lifestyle, communication, education, and work need to be addressed based on their degree of dual-modality deprivation, to improve their ability to live independently. In 1994, an estimated 35,000–40,000 United States residents were medically deafblind. Helen Keller was a well-known example of a deafblind individual. To further her lifelong mission to help the deafblind community to expand its horizons and gain opportunities, the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults, with a residential training program in Sands Point, New York, was established in 1967 by an act of Congress.

Tactile signing is a common means of communication used by people with deafblindness. It is based on a sign language or another system of manual communication.

Summer Tour 2007 Final Time: Kotoba no Chikara is a DVD release of Japanese boy band Arashi. It was released on April 16, 2008 by their record label J Storm. Summer Tour 2007 Final Time: Kotoba no Chikara documented Arashi's summer concert at Tokyo Dome in correspondence with their Time album.

An intervener is a person who regularly works one-to-one with an individual who is deaf-blind. Deafblindness is a low incidence disability that describes individuals with varying degrees of vision and hearing losses. The combined loss often compromises the ability to access information in the environment or to communicate effectively. Interveners, by contributing communication and information, provide a medium through which deaf-blind individuals can link to the people, things and events in the world. Interveners provide services in educational settings for students, as well as in early intervention and community settings. The improvement of the social and emotional well-being of individuals with disabilities, is the goal of interveners.

Father Cyril Axelrod is a deafblind Catholic priest of the Redemptorist Order known for his work with deaf and deafblind people. He has ministered to the deaf and deafblind around the world, including in South Africa, China and the United Kingdom. In 2014 he became the first deafblind person to become an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Richard Kinney was an American educator and school administrator. Blind at age six and deaf by age twenty, Kinney was the third deafblind person in the United States to earn a college degree. Kinney published four volumes of poetry and was president of the Hadley School for the Blind from 1975 until his death in 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elias Hofgaard</span>

Elias Peter Hansen Hofgaard was a Norwegian pioneer educator of the deaf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haben Girma</span> Eritrean-American disability rights advocate

Haben Girma is an American disability rights advocate, and the first deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geraldine Lawhorn</span> American deafblind woman, performer, actress and pianist

Geraldine Jerrie Lawhorn was a figure of the American deafblind community, a performer, actress, pianist, then instructor at the Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired. At 67 years old, she became the first deafblind African American to earn a college degree in the United States of America.

John Lee Clark is an American deafblind poet, writer, and activist from Minnesota. He is the author of Suddenly Slow (2008) and Where I Stand: On the Signing Community and My DeafBlind Experience (2014), and the editor of anthologies Deaf American Poetry (2009) and Deaf Lit Extravaganza (2013). Clark was the recipient of a 2020 National Magazine Award. He is a prominent activist in the Protactile movement.

Georgia Marie Griffith was an American deafblind educator, author, and online community pioneer. Griffith began her career as a music educator. When her hearing deteriorated as an adult, she worked for the Library of Congress translating music into braille. At age 50 Griffith became an early adopter of the Internet, managing message forums for CompuServe and providing assistance to people with disabilities in using computers.

Deafblind UK is a national charity in the United Kingdom supporting people with sight and hearing loss to live the lives they want. Founded in 1928, Deafblind UK has its headquarters in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. The charity help people to live with deafblindness by making connections, and building their confidence and independence through a range of services and campaigns. Run by staff and volunteers, the current CEO is Steve Conway, who has been in position since 2018. The current chairman in Robert Nolan.

Anindya Bapin Bhattacharyya is an Indian American technology instructor for the deafblind. He coordinates the National Outreach Technology Development and Training Program at the Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults, traveling the country teaching deafblind people to use adaptive technology. Deaf from birth and blind at the age of nine, Bhattacharyya has been an advocate for deafblind individuals in the United States and beyond.

Gerrit van der Mey was a deafblind Dutch mathematician. He helped create software for PTERA and ZEBRA, some of the first computers designed in the Netherlands, as well as creating compilers for later computers. In 1982 he was made a member of the Order of Orange-Nassau at the grade of knight.

Protactile is a language used by DeafBlind people using tactile channels. Unlike other sign languages, which are heavily reliant on visual information, protactile is oriented towards touch and is practiced on the body. Protactile communication originated out of communications by DeafBlind people in Seattle in 2007 and incorporates signs from American Sign Language. Protactile is an emerging system of communication in the United States, with users relying on shared principles such as contact space, tactile imagery, and reciprocity.

Japanese Sign Language (JSL), also known as Nihon Shuwa, is the unofficial but most predominantly used sign language used by nearly 57,000 native signers as their primary language. It is a convergent, Deaf community sign language developed in the late 19th century.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Satoshi Fukushima, Invited Speaker". The 2nd International Conference for Universal Design in Kyoto 2006. International Association for Universal Design. 2006. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  2. ↑ "Keynote Speech at the High-level International Meeting to Conclude the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons". DINF (Disability Information Resources). Japanese Society for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities. 2002. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Park, So-young (25 June 2008). "The human touch". Korea JoongAng Daily. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  4. ↑ Fukushima, Satoshi (2012). "The deafblind and disability studies". In Matsui, Akihiko; Nagase, Osamu; Sheldon, Alison; Goodley, Dan; Sawada, Yasuyuki; Kawashima, Satoshi (eds.). Creating a society for all : disability and economy (PDF). Leeds: The Disability Press. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  5. 1 2 "Deafblind Awareness Week (23 - 29 June)". Deafblind Enablement. 2014. Archived from the original on 12 March 2015. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  6. 1 2 Bono, Mayumi; Sakaida, Rui; Makino, Ryosaku; Okada, Tomohiro; Kikuchi, Kouhei; Cibulka, Mio; Willoughby, Louisa Jane Vaughan; Iwasaki, Shimako; Fukishima, Satoshi (2018). "Tactile Japanese Sign Language and Finger Braille:: An Example of Data Collection for Minority Languages in Japan". In Calzolari, Nicoletta (ed.). Proceedings of the 2018 LREC conference. European Language Resources Association. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  7. 1 2 "Collection: Satoshi Fukushima biographical papers". RIT's Distinctive Collections. Rochester Institute of Technology. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  8. 1 2 3 4 "Satoshi FUKUSHIMA [Researcher profile]". RCAST. University of Tokyo. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  9. ↑ "Deaf, blind academic to take post at Todai". The Japan Times. 21 February 2001. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  10. 1 2 Strom, Stephanie (7 July 2001). "Social Warming: Japan's Disabled Gain New Status". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  11. ↑ "Barrier-Free Fukushima Laboratory". RCAST. University of Tokyo. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  12. ↑ "Cartoon's creator hailed as a real-life Asian hero". Taipei Times. 13 June 2003. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  13. ↑ "本間一夫文化賞｜日本点字図書館". Japan Braille Library. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.