d/Deafness at CMU and Beyond
Benjamin Abel — Karishma Kulshrestha — Mingxi Yan
Thesis Statements
Anecdotes are one of the most impactful forms of information (Freling et. al 2020). The Words in My Hands and our Project 1 data both contain anecdotal evidence which draw attention to major issues, including isolation of minorities. The novel focuses on the experience of a Deaf girl, while the data was gathered from a diverse range of real people. Through Piper's story and others like it, a hearing reader can sympathize with and understand d/Deafness in one of the most meaningful ways possible.
Piper, the novel's main character, at first feels isolation due to her disability, but later finds belonging with people who respect her for who she is. Project 1 data mainly divides the sense of belonging into two groups: "people" and "places". Many themes in the dataset revolve around friends. The story in the novel reveals that people value their friends and get a sense of belonging from them.
Many people have invisible disabilities, and the discussion of the impact of these disabilities has the potential to start a larger conversation surrounding these experiences within another community.
Deaf, deaf, and d/Deaf
In order to properly talk about deafness and the experience of deaf people, we must first understand some basic vocabulary. The word deaf can mean many different things for different people. Even capitalization can drastically change the word's meaning.
Deaf: A person who views Deafness as part of their identity will often identify as Deaf. Most Deaf people are pre-lingually deaf, meaning that they were born without hearing or lost it before learning to speak. Because of this, some form of sign language (such as ASL or Auslan) is usually their first language. People who are Deaf generally have a tight community and resent being called "hard of hearing."
deaf: Many people who lost their hearing after learning their first language identify as deaf. People who are deaf often use hearing aids or cochlear implants so they are able to hear and function more or less normally in hearing society. These people view deafness as a disability and use the term interchangeably with "hard of hearing."
d/Deaf: This term can be used to reference both deaf and Deaf people. Hearing people who are unsure if someone else identifies as deaf or Deaf can call them d/Deaf. This maintains inclusivity and protects feelings of those who might feel othered by being mislabeled.
(Cheng 2021) (Diversity Style Guide 2016) (SignHealth 2020)
Deaf Stories
Relating the stories of d/Deaf people, both real and fictional, is important for empathy and fighting stereotypes. In The Words in My Hands, Asphyxia presents deaf struggles on a minute, personal scale. Even when Piper is wearing her hearing aids, words are often garbled enough to be completely unintelligible to the reader. For example, at a plant-growing workshop, she hears someone say "Dessata guffa eedebe compost (Asphyxia 2021)," the meaning of which is lost on both her and anyone reading the book. Eventually, the reader becomes frustrated by these nonsense sentences. This is a method which Asphyxia effectively uses to get the reader to sympathize with the frustration and difficulties experienced by deaf people on a daily basis.
Asphyxia based Piper on herself: the author has been deaf since three years old, and learned sign language at 18. Like Piper, it "changed [her] life" (Asphyxia 2021). Signing can offer d/Deaf people the chance to express themselves in a way designed for them, rather than trying to conform to societal norms targeted towards others.
From Project 1 DATA
The theme “friend” appeared 11 times among 15 groups of interviews, which is 73.33%. It appears more than 68 times during an interview of 28 students at CMU. We can see that friends are important to us. In fact, it is also important to Piper and people like her. In our book "The Words in My Hands", Piper’s friend Marley is her only sunshine in a world she can’t hear. Not only do in-group people become friends, but we also make friends with people who are completely different from us. Accepting distinctions and embracing them is what we want to do to become the light in others' worlds.
Let's look at another interesting survey from CMU students (with a small population) about d/Deaf:
It seems like most of our respondents are hesitated to make friends with d/Deaf people.
Nearly everyone says yes to this one!
But this result shows that our respondents are still hesitant to make friends if they imagine they are d/Deaf.
We now know that we are willing to make friends with d/Deaf people if they want to make friends with us. But we hesitate to make friends actively with d/Deaf people. We also imagine that d/Deaf people hesitate to make friends with us. Well, we also know that friends are important from our Project 1 data and book. But where is the "first driving force"?
Here's a description of the experience with d/Deaf friends from our survey:
"Beyond the silly things normal kids do, there weren’t really any difficulties. My friend was deaf, but had cochlear implants, so we were able to interact similar to hearing people."
We see that they are not different from us at all! So why can't we hold out our hands first?
Here are some extra resources:
Rezenet is sharing her story as a deaf interpreter. She uses sign language.
This is the location of the Pittsburgh Association of the Deaf.
Pittsburgh Association of the Deaf
This is the website of the Pittsburgh Association of the Deaf.
In-groups and Out-groups
The concept of in-groups and out-groups has its roots in Social Identity Theory, a social psychological theory that proposes that individuals see themselves as part of a variety of groups (Trepte & Loy 2017). This categorization results in the evaluation of groups as either groups they belong to, in-groups, or groups they do not belong to, out-groups (Trepte & Loy 2017). These evaluations and the determination of value results in the concept of a social identity, which can be perceived as positive or negative (Trepte & Loy 2017).
Physical Importance of Representation
In this video, it establishes the importance of sign language interpreters and how their presence can legitimately be life or death. There is also the connection between proper communication and the pandemic, where the information is critical for the safety of themselves and others.
This concept is fascinating in the context of The Words in My Hands, because Piper does not know sign language: she is trained to appear as hearing, growing up with lip-reading and speaking as normal. We see something similar to the video above regarding the role of interpreters discussing how Piper has an interpreter who shows a police officer that he is still communicating with Piper and should treat her as such.
Psychological Importance of Representation
Media representations develop social beliefs regarding health and illness (Lyons 2000). This means that the media available to individuals develop the underlying meaning of health and illness for both professionals and the average person (Lyons 2000). Today, there are a multitude of voices involved in the conversation, whereas in the past a major part of the information was distributed by medical practitioners (Lyons 2000).
As this broadly applies to d/Deaf people, the media struggles to properly provide space for sign language, indicating that the way the world perceives d/Deaf people is that they are less important, as an indication that they are less present in the media than other groups (Schmitt 2017). This lack of representation can cause the development of otherness, because people do not see this group anywhere: making it a fundamental out-group based on a differentiation from others. Adding to this, about 25% of Deaf people have additional disabilities, which means that they could be not represented in a variety of ways (Fellinger et. al 2012)
Integrating this, it indicates that people would perceive this disability as something that is not important or does not have the right to take up the mental or physical space as other able-bodied people. This contributes to d/Deaf people seen as a minority (Fellinger et. al 2012). This status and perceived lack of importance could be the cause of d/Deaf people having more mental health issues on average (Fellinger et. al 2012) This is supported by the fact that early access to effective communication is helpful, indicating that more people learning sign language contributes to the solution of this problem (Fellinger et. al 2012)
In the context of The Words in My Hands, this develops into a deep-seeded struggle based on Pipers relationship with her mother: her mom wanting her to be normal, to not be Deaf. Her mom being a major source of many things within herself, her mother having the desire for a child to be different than the one that she has cultivates a strong anxiety surrounding others knowing that Piper is Deaf. This is contrasted throughout this novel, Piper learns that Deafness is something to be celebrated from her newfound relationship with Marley.
Accommodations for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing at CMU
As is stated on the website for the Office of Disability Resources, also known as ODR, is the acknowledgement of the nature of the accommodations: the majority involving the conversion of auditory information to an accessible format and the amplification of auditory information. These accommodations allow for effective communication with the disabled students and can include peer notetaking or getting the slides presented in class prior to the class period (CMU).
There is also assistive technology, or AT, which has a variety of devices that can be specialized for a specific disability or generalized to increase performance overall. In the past several years, mainstream technology has been catching up to specifically designed AT, making it more affordable and accessible. There are also qualifications for alternative testing and alternative classroom formats to improve the comprehension of the material (McCue).
ODR Accessibility Specialist Patrick McCue says that when deciding which accommodations to implement for each student's unique situation, there are three main "experts" to consider. First, there is the student, who is the expert on their d/Deafness or disability. Nobody can know more about anyone's experience than that person themselves. Second is the professor, who is of course the expert on the course. The professor knows best what changes can and cannot be made without changing the overall learning goals of the course. And finally, ODR is the most knowledgeable on what accommodations are actually available and how best to use them for the situation (McCue).
One major hindrance to everyone receiving accommodations is the stigma often associated with asking for help. This problem has been observed by many to be particularly bad at CMU (McCue). How can we work to improve this? By individually working to foster a culture of inclusivity. A culture that encourages people to ask for help and embraces those that do.
Resources Beyond CMU
Diversity Style Guide: A resource for those who want to talk or write about groups they may not personally be familiar with. In addition to terms and points of view of d/Deafness, the Diversity Style Guide also has resources on "race/ethnicity; religion; sexual orientation; gender identity; age and generation; drugs and alcohol; and physical, mental and cognitive disabilities" (Diversity Style Guide).
https://www.diversitystyleguide.com
Start ASL: An series of online courses which teach and maintain ASL skills. This resource can be used by anyone, hearing or d/Deaf. Sign languages like ASL and Auslan are their own languages with unique grammatical structures distinct from English. Non-d/Deaf people can and do learn ASL for a wide variety of reasons: to communicate with Deaf friends and family, to become an ASL interpreter, or just to learn a foreign language! (Start ASL)
A Note on the Authors
The authors of this site are not d/Deaf, therefore the information on this site is representative of what we could gather from external sources. This is not ideal for a project based on d/Deaf experiences, but it is important for this conversation to be had with members of the hearing community as well.
Works Cited
Asphyxia. (2021). The Words in my Hands. Annick Press.
Asphyxia. “About Asphyxia.” Hello Asphyxia, Wordpress, 20 Dec. 2021, https://helloasphyxia.wordpress.com/about-asphyxia/.
Cheng, Katelyn. “Deaf Culture: What Does ‘D’, ‘d’, and ‘d/Deaf’ Mean in the Deaf Community?” Start ASL, 13 May 2021, https://www.startasl.com/what-does-d-d-and-d-deaf-mean-in-the-deaf-community/.
“Deaf, deaf.” Diversity Style Guide, 29 Apr. 2016, https://www.diversitystyleguide.com/glossary/deaf-deaf/.
Freling, Traci H., et al. "When poignant stories outweigh cold hard facts: A meta-analysis of the anecdotal bias." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 160 (2020): 51-67.
Fellinger, Johannes, Daniel Holzinger, and Robert Pollard. "Mental health of deaf people." The Lancet 379.9820 (2012): 1037-1044.
Lyons, Antonia C. "Examining media representations: Benefits for health psychology." Journal of health psychology 5.3 (2000): 349-358.
Schmitt, Pierre. "Representations of sign language, deaf people, and interpreters in the arts and the media." Sign Language Studies 18.1 (2017): 130-147.
Trepte, Sabine, and Laura S. Loy. "Social identity theory and self‐categorization theory." The international encyclopedia of media effects (2017): 1-13.
University, Carnegie Mellon. “Accommodations Descriptions - Disability Resources - Carnegie Mellon University.” Www.cmu.edu, www.cmu.edu/disability-resources/students/accommodations-descriptions.html. Accessed 24 Apr. 2023.
“What Is the Difference between Deaf and Deaf?” SignHealth, The Deaf Health Charity, 26 Mar. 2020, https://signhealth.org.uk/resources/learn-about-deafness/deaf-or-deaf/#:~:text=The%20word%20deaf%20is%20used,started%20to%20learn%20to%20talk.
WHO: https://www.who.int/health-topics/hearing-loss#tab=tab_1 Accessed 24 Apr. 2023.
National Deaf Centre: Deaf Postsecondary Data Dashboard.
https://nationaldeafcenter.org/resources/research-data/dashboard/ Accessed 24 Apr. 2023.
McCue, Patrick. Interview. Conducted by Karishma Kulshrestha. 28 April 2023.