Late-Deafened Adults
January 6, 2012 at 11:21 am 1 comment
I think it is important for us to educate ourselves about late-deafened adults and be sensitive to their great losses:
For many late deafened adults, they grow up hearing and functioning well. Once, they lose their hearing, they feel that they are cut off from their normal communication as well as their own identities. They go through their grief processing in different levels, and learn how to cope and adapt to this loss on an individual basis.
They also need to learn to be “deaf”. They, normally at the very beginning, are not willing to associate with Culturally Deaf people. They would rather be connected to people who are experiencing what they are going through.
Fortunately, there is an organization called ‘Hearing Loss Association of America’ (HLAA). Their mission is to support the Empowerment of Deafened People. They are able to share experiences of growing up hearing and becoming deaf adults and they also have similar communication issues. At the same time, they learn to confront and accept their deafness. They have various degrees of hearing loss. Some wear hearing aids or cochlear implants.
The forms of communications are visual, oral, aural, speech reading, live captioning (CART), closed captioning, sign language or American Sign Language. There are unique challenges for this population. I once taught a late-deafened lady how to use American Sign Language, but I had to sign everything really slowly. She is not a Culturally Deaf person. I also listened to her experience adjusting and managing her hearing loss.
I am sensitive and patient with those with hearing loss because I have a family member who lost some of her hearing when she was a teen. She went through many phases at the beginning. She had to wear hearing aids but always had her hair cover them; she did not want anyone to know about it. She functions pretty well in the hearing society, but she leans on lip reading or sits close to a person talking. It was a big struggle for her and there was no school counselor providing some support. She felt her whole life collapsed and did not know where to turn. To this day, I still do not know how she coped.
I, personally, did not have to cope with my hearing loss because I was born deaf. My parents were deaf so everything was pretty easy for me. When you see late-deafened adults, please try to be patient with them. They sometimes do not speak clearly because they cannot hear their own speech. You need to ask them to repeat nicely and sit close to this person. They will feel you show a lot of respect and acceptance.
By Doreen Solar, ECNV Deaf Peer Counselor
Entry filed under: Deaf/HoH -- Vlog. Tags: deaf, hard of hearing.
1.
Vickie Gloria | June 6, 2012 at 11:02 pm
As a late deaf adult I related to everything this post was about. A very good friend of mine who is an interpreter told me I should search about this topic. I was a hearing person, “normal” in everyway that society deemed “normal”. In my mid-30′s I started gradually loosing my hearing for reasons unkown, (my mother also lost her’s the same way). Although I had already learned sign language at an early age, communication with the hearing society left me pretty frustrated and lonely. Ignorance of many of the hearing individuals in the area that I live in left me searching for careers where my hearing was not an issue, and I must say, even with two college degrees people are still very hesitant to hire me. If I could just get people to realize a few things about deaf, (either born or late adult), is that we are NOT deaf and dumb…many of us have college degrees. Yes, I speak fluently; I grew-up just as you did, I have only recently become deaf, and please, don’t mistake my lack of hearing as being rude or anti-social….I just didn’t hear you speak to me. If a deaf person tells you that in order to “hear” you they must face you to talk, please don’t get angry, face them, and then “yell” what you are saying. And last, don’t be afraid of us just because we can’t hear…we are very articulate, funny, and love to do the same things that you do.