Hearing Impaired

The frustration of the hearing with their interaction with the non-hearing is perhaps no better illustrated than in the words of a father responding to the hospitalization (due to meningitis) of his daughter with profound deafness. This father stated:

Right now, when we needed to communicate with her the most, we could not. Our own daughter--and we hardly knew her! What if she never recovered? She could lip-read several hundred isolated words, but she couldn't speak her own name. She had never said, "i'm tired," "I'm hungry" or "My tummy hurts." She had never said, "I love you." She had never asked for a doll or a stuffed teddy bear. She had never told us what she liked or wanted or who she played with. Communication! That's what we had been denied. An uncontrollable anger welled up within me. We had been cheated--it wasn't fair! Why? Why? Why? (Turnbull & Turnbull, 1990, p.25).

One of the central points made by this father centers around the fact that he felt that he never really knew his daughter--this despite the fact that they lived together and were related by blood. This lack of communication between the hearing and the non-hearing and the resulting failure of the two groups to gain much knowledge of each other has

. . .
d validity is unknown although steps were taken to boost its validity. The developed questionnaire assessed four factors of concern: academic concerns, socio-emotional concerns, administrative concerns, and teacher concerns. Results of a discriminant analysis revealed overall differences in attitudes toward mainstreaming for all four groups. In particular, two factors, academic and administrative concerns, differentiated between all groups. Regular teachers were found to have generally negative attitudes toward mainstreaming; however, the worse attitudes were held by special education administrators and special education teachers and this in the area of administrative concerns. Cross-Cultural Studies There are indications that the misperceptions of the hearing toward people who are deaf or hearing impaired is not limited to the United States. For example, Togonu-Bickersteth, and Odebiyi (1986) conducted two surveys in Nigeria. In these surveys, the authors examined discrepancies between deaf students' (N=146) vocational aspirations and the hearing public's (N=534) assessment of their vocational capabilities. Most of the public believed that the capabilities of deaf students were no greater than that required for nonprof
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Mallenby Mallenby, Koreans Nigerians, Summary Conclusions, Holmes Karst, Lovett Goodwin, According Fichten, ATMS ATMS, Performance Measurement, Peer Helper, Garvar-Pinhas Schmelkin, negative attitudes, deaf/hearing impaired, people disabilities, attitudes deaf, attitudes mainstreaming, teacher attitudes, public attitudes, attitudes people, hold negative, hold negative attitudes, special education, attitudes people disabilities, deaf/hearing impaired individuals, deaf hearing impaired, negative attitudes disabled,
Approximate Word count = 4997
Approximate Pages = 20 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Hearing Impaired