It's About Total Communication

"Do you still use total communication?" an old friend of mine asked me this past week.

It'd been a while since I used the term, but I said (and signed), "Yes. Yes, I do." We sat down and proceeded to catch up over coffee, and it occurred to me that "total communication" is, in fact, the best way to describe the varied conversational strategies I seek and use in my daily life. It also occurred to me that I haven't blogged about it before, at least not beyond a passing remark or two.

The term total communication (it even has its own wikipedia page!) refers to an idea that tries to find a middleground between the long-fraught territories of oral versus sign language-based deaf education. It was in vogue during my stint at the New Mexico School for the Deaf in the early '90s, and I also remember it playing into the philosophy of the summer camp for the deaf I attended from ages nine through 14. (By the time I entered mainstreamed schools in elementary school and onwards, total communication had firmly ingrained itself into my family's lifestyle and there was no going back.) Many of the communication strategies I used in my younger years and continue to use today are closely tied to total communication, which seeks to offer deaf individuals with a range of communication tools and strategies, from sign language (ASL/SEE/pidgin/whatever) to oral and auditory skills, to lipreading to reading and writing, to visual aids and captioning and all the technology that's available at the moment. Even cued speech, too, which I personally don't know but have seen a few friends use. (It's wild.) Basically, any form of communication goes – when you're living with a profound hearing loss, you need to make use of all the tools you can. You need to be multidimensional!

I've been reflecting on this multidimensionality lately, as it continues to be very marked in my life. With the recent medical/treatment/education shift to cochlear implants and other advances in technology, my opinion is that total communication is no less important than it used to be. Deaf culture-based arguments aside, a cochlear implant is not a "fix." It does not completely "cure" a child of his or her deafness, or an adult for that matter. I'm still as deaf as ever once the device switches off. When it's on, it has placed a massive amount of sound waves in my possession, but the sound quality still doesn't equal natural hearing. I still reach for my bag of tricks. As I get older and settle into my new sense of identity with the CI, I find that I'm strangely fond of my ability to switch gears at will. Listening is coming, slowly. I can lipread. If I'm with another deaf person or with a close hearing friend who signs, I sign. I see it, understand it, use it, and find it useful. Otherwise, I speak and that works perfectly well. I watch for nonverbal cues. I dodge any complications with making phone calls by texting and emailing constantly. Depending on the situation and the person, I may find myself communicating in many different ways. Being flexible with communication has empowered me in many different ways, and I find that I'm fondest of the people who can be perceptive and flexible in their communication strategies as well. It's a useful skill.

I keep dwelling over the state of deaf education these days, hoping that the new focus on cochlear implants doesn't smother all the other strategies that can make a deaf individual successful. It scares me to think of dumping a deaf kid into everyday life armed with his or her CI alone. Heck, even if that deaf individual doesn't require sign language after receiving a CI, signing is still worthwhile. (Signing is worthwhile for hearing people too. If only because it's fun.) And, switching to the other hand while returning to the Deaf culture argument, a fiercely sign language-based lifestyle doesn't justify ignoring the prospects of communicating via listening, lipreading, or writing. It's not one thing or another: the more ammo you have in your arsenal, the better. I used to be ambivalent about this idea, as one might find looking back over the very first posts of this blog, but I'm not that way anymore.

I sat down with my friend this past week, as I've sat down with a few other longtime friends this summer. We both talked out loud, we signed, we probably found ourselves lipreading and watching each other closely. It made things easier for both of us. I walked out thinking of a multiple-choice exam in which the answer is "all of the above." Total communication. That's it. The best part was doing it so effortlessly.

One more scenario: this morning I went to drop off a big package at the post office. Standing in line, I grew distracted and didn't realize the clerk was calling me to the counter. Then I grew distracted again and needed to ask him to repeat what he said. These two things must have tipped him off. I saw his expression change a bit. He started speaking more clearly. Then when I was walking off, he raised his open palm to his chin, then extended it outward: clearly the sign for thank you. Once, at a different time in my life, I would have almost kicked myself. Had I been that obvious, made my disability that apparent? Had I failed to pass completely, to integrate myself seamlessly into hearing person land? (Passing is a topic I ought to blog about sometime.) This time, though, no matter. I grinned, somewhat nonsensically signed thank you back, then walked out thinking, I love it when random hearing people do things like that.

Total communication.

Deaf Dining: Mozzeria

Today marked probably one of the most unique and interesting restaurant experiences that I've had. A friend of mine had seen the following article about Mozzeria, a new pizza restaurant in San Francisco's Mission district, and, along with another friend, today we decided to go:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/04/FD2U1MKA7S.DTL

The cool thing about Mozzeria is that it's owned by a deaf couple, most of the employees are deaf themselves, and nearly all of them sign. The two friends I went with today are both hearing, but both sign rather well (both have been former roommates of mine :) ), and I think the three of us were all excited to see what a signing dining environment would be like.

I admit, walking into this restaurant and immediately having the hostess sign to us, then raise a printed paper in case we were hearing non-signers and hadn't understood, was a pretty amazing moment for me personally. I felt myself shedding much of the communication anxiety I have when I go out in public, especially out to eat when I know I will need to interact with a waiter. Talking with hearing waiters is usually fine for me, and I've done it for years, but I do miss things they say - when they go on about the special of the day or ask other unexpected questions, I'm thrown off and rely on my hearing friends to fill in for me and/or translate. Today I was pleased to discover how reassuring that added measure of communicative clarity felt with sign. Is this the way the world feels for the hearing, so much more open and empowering?

Our brunch/lunch at Mozzeria was in many ways a typical eating-out experience: we took our menus, ordered, ate, and paid the bill amidst our own conversation, interactions with the waiter, etc. But the fresh surprise I felt, despite myself, every time a waiter or other employee reappeared and started signing to me - signing! - made me feel more alive to, as well as relaxed in, my surroundings than usual. Even though I've long detached myself from the Deaf world for a variety of reasons, the truth is that I never feel more at home than when the people around me are signing. I saw busboys and chefs walk by signing across the room to each other. A few of them had hearing aids. Several of the tables were filled with deaf people, and one older lady waved over and started a conversation. I can't remember the last time I interacted casually with other diners at a restaurant. I don't know if it's at all typical for hearing people (minus a very odd extended conversation my family once had with a total stranger in a Chinese restaurant in DC), but for me chance interactions with hearing strangers in public places are rare. At one point, the deaf group left and a hearing party came in to replace them at the table beside ours, and the three of us joked that now it was they who were out of place. Not that Mozzeria did not cater to non-signing hearing people - our waiter was hearing and spoke as well as signed, and the restaurant ran just like any other. But the vibe itself was different.

All of the above points were reiterated for me when, after our stint at Mozzeria, we decided to head over to another place for dessert. This was in some ways another highlight of the day (since after all the dessert was composed of New Mexico-style green chile apple pie! in San Francisco!), but ordering from the hearing woman behind the counter, zoning in on her face and nevertheless suffering a bit of a communicative bobble when she asked if I wanted my pie a la mode, showed me how nice it had been to go to a restaurant so centered around sign. If only once.

Now I hope I can go back sometime - and maybe take another hearing friend or two :)

It Is What It Is

It's funny, right after posting about that forwarded petition on audism (which left me brooding over the whole idea of Deaf isolation/hearing-world immersion), I got myself dressed up and headed over to a networking event on campus. It was hosted by a women's group that I'm involved with, and although I'm never quite excited to go to those things, I figured I'd resort to the old standby: suck it up, go and be seen, and try to handle it all as graciously as possible. But when I got there I quickly found that it wasn't going to be my kind of night. The room was loud and crowded, full of strangers talking in groups, many of them too difficult to lipread even if I could focus amidst the noise. The CI was more of a distraction than a help. On top of that, I was informed that there would be an assortment of activities and guest speakers for a fair deal of the time - not something I was prepared to handle at that time of night without an interpreter. A bit deflated but not exactly surprised, I left early. My night did go on to better and more useful things, but the thought racing through my mind as I walked back to my room was, No wonder it's so easy to retreat into Deaf culture.

Not that that's an option for me. It isn't, nor would I want it to be. Still, I do have my moments when it seems that the hearing world isn't at all made for me - a sentiment that I know resonates with other deaf and hard-of-hearing people. As I've gotten older, I've gotten better at maneuvering through these disconnected moments and figuring out how to avoid them. A lot of that involves advance planning (for interpreters and other accommodations), some self-advocacy, and sheer self-knowledge. The unexpected does come up, regardless, the moments in which I find myself stuck and really not able to communicate as I'd like to. And, as uncomfortable as the entire rhetoric of Deaf culture can make me, I'll be honest in admitting that during those moments it can be easy to think of groups of D/deaf people with more fondness than groups of hard-to-understand hearing people, at least in the abstract. It's easy to want to be isolationist. It's easy to be hurt and angry simultaneously at everyone and at no one in particular. It's easy to want to reject the system that seems not to care about your needs, much less provide for them. It's easy to want to band together with someone - anyone - in defiance of the linguistic and communicative barrier that accompanies hearing loss.

All of this makes sense to me in one tumultuous, emotionally chaotic moment. And then I take a deep breath, count my blessings (of which there are many!), and engage in some form of the serenity prayer. This does not define me. There are ways around the barrier, just as there have been scores of times before. And, sometimes, it just is what it is.

Audism? Not Really.

I just got the following Moveon.org petition message in a forwarded email from an on-campus disability awareness group I'm involved with. It's a pretty biased look at some (in my view) exciting strides in hearing-loss research, but it's a typical enough response from Deaf advocates that I thought I'd post it here. Just for the record, I generally don't agree with the big-D deaf community's views on "audism," maybe because I'm not culturally Deaf myself. Audism, if you want to use that word, does exist in the forms of deaf people not being given the consideration and opportunities that hearing people have, but honestly research such as the following is intended to help, not harm. I'm all for stem cell research - I think it's beyond amazing. And, once again, hearing is a wonderful thing too. And, yet once again, it doesn't have to be either-or.

Although this raises the question all over again of whether deaf people should choose between being deaf and being hearing. Jury's out on that one. I've written about it on this blog before, but honestly whenever I return to this issue I get a little tired of thinking about it in such polarized, dogmatic terms.

Any thoughts or responses, bring them on.


Stop Stem Cell Experiment on Deaf Babies

Sign The Petition to Stop FDA's Audism

The FDA has recently approved stem cell experimentation on Deaf infants at the Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas. The experiment is to include up to 10 Deaf newborns and infants (6 weeks to 18 months old) to eradicate their being Deaf. The FDA's approval promotes the hidden cultural and linguistic genocide on the Deaf infants and is part of the eugenics to wipe out the Deaf community and our beautiful and precious American Sign Language, which is used by the ASL Deaf community and is one of the top languages studied in the USA.

The Deaf infants are human beings and have their human rights to be created, accepted, loved and supported. The FDA approved experiment will include repeated MRI screenings, possible sedation, injection of untested stem cells for that age population - all which carry long lasting risks and implications. All of this will be done in the name of CURING the infants of a "condition" of which is an ethnicity. (See Lane, Pillard, and Hedeberg)

Being Deaf is not a life-threatening condition and does not cause premature death nor does it bring immeasurable suffering. In fact it does the opposite. Many Deaf people who have American Sign Language and English as part of their life attest to being happy. If the collaborators of the study want a cure - the FDA, the Blood Cord Registry, and the Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital need look no further than ensuring that the infant has access to ASL, English, and Deaf culture. Audism (the belief that to be hearing and/or behave as a hearing person is superior to being Deaf) is the problem, not being Deaf. It is similar to the attitudes that affect minorities like Hispanic people, African-American people, like that of the "Stepford Wives" syndrome -- creating the perfect white, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, hearing baby.

It is imperative that the collaborators of this study (which all stand to have monetary gains from this experiment) be held accountable and that the funding and future profits behind this unethical and inhumane study be fully disclosed and examined.

Sign this petition to tell the President and your Congressional Representatives to stop this horrific experiment.  http://signon.org/sign/stop-stem-cells-experiment

NOTE: This petition is set up through Signon.org, which is a part of Moveon.org.  By signing this petition, you will be added to Moveon.org's e-mail list which you can unsubscribe.  Our Alert is not an endorsement of Moveon.org, we are promoting this petition to fight Audism.

What's in a Word?

Semantics. Connotations. Linguistic accuracy. What's in a name, anyway?

As someone who lives with a hearing loss, I've long struggled with how to label myself. Granted, when I was young, it was simple: I was deaf. (Disclaimer: little-d, not big-D. The divide, which occurs over culture and identity, is something that I won't go into too much here. Suffice it to say that I view myself as having always been removed from the Deaf community.) And, as someone who had that distinction clear inside her own mind, I became annoyed with the occasional insistence that hearing people had at calling me "hearing impaired." I always preferred the term "deaf" to that clunky, overly-politically-correct, disability-focused word. To an extent, the term can still make me bristle.

However, since my cochlear implant things have grown even less simple. I've discovered problems with calling myself "deaf." Is it really fair to use that term, when at this point I am hearing at almost a normal-range threshold? (Hearing, mind you, not necessarily understanding.) In a way, saying that I am deaf denies the progress I've made in learning how to hear. Moreover, it embraces a binary that hearing people, all too often, are too quick to embrace. That is, they have a difficult time conceptualizing what it's like to live with a hearing loss: they tend to think that it's all or nothing. Either you can hear, and understand everything, or you can't hear at all. The word "deaf" locks me at the far end of that spectrum - the end of the spectrum that I've spent the last 11 months trying to escape. Granted, without my CI I am literally walking in silence. I am still deaf. But, in the context of living in the world and talking and interacting and - whoo-hoo! - hearing, it hardly seems accurate to describe myself that way. "Deaf" doesn't acknowledge my everyday reality, and it gives other people misconceptions besides.

If I don't personally use "deaf" as a cultural term, and if I don't use it as a descriptive term, then what should I call myself? In the days right after the CI, when my whole life seemed chaotic and new, this question was the least of my troubles. But now, as I settle more into this hearing life and start to take it for granted, I've started feeling more conflicted.

First of all, I refuse to say that I am "hearing impaired." Besides the history that I associate with the term, I feel that it's not entirely accurate. I am hearing so well, and the CI has worked out so positively, that I can't call what I hear "impaired." The sounds entering my brain are there - they're just different from what hearing people hear, and I'm still en route to figuring them out myself.

Moving on. Deaf: feels habitual, feels comfortable, but is off the mark. Hearing: pshaw, no. Hearing-impaired: certainly not. How about "differently hearing"? Sounds awkward, and verges on euphemism. Atypically hearing, alternative hearing, hearing through a processor, hearing more than you think but understanding less than you think, hearing disrupted, hearing-but-interpretatively-challenged, in my own hearing world, en-route-to-alternate-hearing-universe...

In the end, I'm going to throw up my hands and call myself cyborg-hearing! (Kidding.) Or, at least, someone for whom the deconstructing effect of the CI has contributed to an increased resistance of classifications. Even if I still need a word with which to describe myself to all of those typically-hearing people.

The D-Bomb

I’m never quite sure how to drop it, or when. But I need to figure it out.

By “it,” I mean the question of telling people I meet that I'm deaf. I’m not exactly like them, I can’t do certain things, and specific accommodations need to be made for me, but I also want to be clear about the abilities that I do have and to avoid making the hearing-loss issue intimidating. It’s a quandary that, post-CI, I still struggle with. How to be clear, straightforward, approachable, fair, but yet realistic?

It’s a tricky challenge with no one-size-fits-all solution. Sometimes, at the outset of a conversation or a relationship, dropping the “d-bomb” simply isn’t necessary – or relevant. When applying for a job or internship position, no way am I going to mention it. Why should I, when it doesn’t at all affect my qualifications or my ability to perform? Starting every introduction email with the disclaimer, “By the way, before you decide how to interact with me in the future, you should know that I am deaf” – that’s not an option. It’s selling myself short. I refuse to let one aspect of my identity define my every interaction. In pursuing my real-world activities, I am a student, a reader and a writer, a hard worker, a participator, et cetera, first. I begin long-distance interactions simply as myself – which of course brings up the interesting question of how my deafness fits into this holistic sense of self-identity. (Messy question; not going there.)

However, when the time for an interview rolls around, or when I find myself about to (gulp) actually meet the individual with whom I’ve been corresponding, I need to decide what to do. In the past, I’ve tried both approaches. I’ve stayed mum about the d-word and showed up hoping that the situation won’t escalate into something unmanageable, and/or that my lipreading skills will be able to save me.

(Sometimes, that’s worked beautifully. Other times, I find myself reeling and backtracking, trying to explain away the minor snags that have suddenly turned into ogres. It depends on the person and the situation, it really does. If I bring up the deafness issue with some people, I look back afterwards and wonder why I made it such a big deal. Why, it really was irrelevant. Other people, however, need to be slammed over the head with it before I feel like I can approach a semblance of my normal ability to function.)

Or, I’ll play my cards straight before I even meet this person face-to-face. Deep breath. Time to let the cat out of the bag. I’m embarrassed every time it happens, for whatever reason. I suppose because I’ve succeeded so far in my life goal of Interacting Normally With Hearing People, and now I’m about to voluntarily set myself apart.

(Interestingly, this approach of prior disclosure is also successful, or not, depending on the person and the situation. Some people, if they’ve been given time to ruminate over “Ohmygoshshe’sdeafIdon’tknowwhattodo,” come to pieces in the actual interaction. They’re more nervous than I am, they overenunciate, they question themselves, and so the entire meeting becomes damage control on my part, trying to reassure said person back to the impression-of-hearing-person-normalcy that they had before. Other people, however, simply appreciate the heads-up. I’ve had several surprising situations arise where I’ll meet someone who unexpectedly knows some sign language or who already has deaf friends or family members – if I hadn’t mentioned my own deafness, I wouldn’t have received the gift, so to speak, of being able to interact on this level.)

The d-bomb is troublesome even in casual interactions. Sometimes I’ll be out and about and meet someone new. He or she is easy to lipread, and so we settle into a comfortable conversation without me ever bringing up my hearing loss at all. I’m enjoying myself when this new hearing companion does something that does not adhere with my version of reality, such as saying “Give me a phone call!” At that moment, of course, I have to break the mold, bring my deafness out of the closet, and say, “Whoa, hold on.” And then, of course, the situation feels awkward because I hadn’t mentioned this gee-probably-rather-important-fact before. Why? It wasn’t necessary. I was comfortable then. Honestly, I forgot.

Or, I’ll indicate to a new friend what I need in a one-on-one interaction, only to see that friend again in a group and realize that he or she really doesn’t get the big picture, doesn’t get that what works in one situation falls apart in another. Then, I’m obliged to speak up and clarify further, but too often it becomes easy to embrace a self-defeatist mindset and let things unfold as they will.

This is a problem: I tend to only mention my deafness when it becomes troublesome. Otherwise, I shove it under the carpet and ignore it. Ignoring it is something I’ve tried to do for a while, and it doesn’t work. Not only is it unfair to me, it’s unfair to the people whom I could construct valuable relationships with, if they only knew what to do. Approaching the hearing world head-on was part of my decision to get a CI, and since then I’ve gotten progressively better at being up-front. (But, but – there are situations where being up-front isn’t necessary! Where I can cope! Where lipreading is fine! Where the CI is amazing! Where I don’t feel the need to let every single person I meet know just how complicated all of this is! Like I said, all of these questions can get tricky.)

There are other questions I’m mulling over, too. For instance, what language should I use? Oftentimes “Hello, my name is Rachel and I’m deaf” doesn’t seem to work. Hearing people don’t know what to do with that word, that entire concept. They’ve often never thought about what it means. I’m as likely to get stares of shock as I am offers of accommodation. One of my deaf friends once advised me to introduce it through subtler means and action-significant words, such as “I lipread” or “I need you to look at me when you talk.” There, is that better? I’ve revealed something important about myself but also given my companion some indication of how he or she should behave. That's more productive and fair, isn't it?

Interestingly, talking about my CI fits into the entire d-bomb dilemma. “So that thing lets you hear?” people will ask me. I hesitate before giving them an answer. I want to explain that hearing isn’t the same as understanding, that it’s a beast of a process, that what I’m capable of now isn’t what I’ll be capable of in six months, or (certainly not!) what I was capable of when I first got switched on. But, for the uninitiated, hearing is a binary: either you can, or you can’t. I don’t want to contribute to misconceptions that, with my CI, I’m able to function one hundred percent normally, but I also don’t want to underemphasize the immense difference it has made in my life. So I sidestep the question a bit. I try to respond to the confused inquiries of “If you have a cochlear implant, then, doesn’t that mean you’re not deaf after all?” I try to address how lipreading and structuring my environment are still very important tools, even though, yes, I technically “can” hear at an almost-normal plane. The concept of balance between two worlds, deaf and hearing, is difficult for many people. And, in a way, the CI has only made it more complicated to explain.

In the end, it’s easy to want to give up. I find that sometimes there’s no way to be consistent about how I present myself and my deafness. But there must be a way to be consistently included, consistently understood, consistently enabled. There must be – just hold on, though, I’m working on it.

Success, Undermined

One thing that frequently bothers me is the uniqueness of my position, not only with receiving a CI at my age in my circumstances, but in doing the things that I do, as a deaf person.

I applied for a job earlier this month, and got a prompt email response praising my resume as well-qualified, with the inevitable line, "Please give me a call at xxx number so we can discuss this further." Oh, jeez. This again. Obviously I hadn't mentioned the whole deaf thing from the start; it was completely irrelevant. But obviously it had to come out now. So, taking a deep breath and feeling vaguely abashed (as I always do in such situations), I fired off a reply explaining that phone calls weren't an option for me, could we meet in person or email, et cetera. The answer I got: "How wonderful that you have gone this far in spite of being deaf." Uhhh. Yeah. Gah. And then a few evasive lines about being uncertain of whether I could manage the job because of my phone incompatability and challenges in receiving verbal feedback. Well, so much for that.

This is just one recent instance (and a pretty mild example, at that) of several things that I keep running up against. The necessity of labeling myself as deaf - which I am, yes, on one hand - even while I feel like I've morphed into some strange organism with head jumbled full of noise. Deaf, but not entirely. And not hearing either. The question of what I will be able to accomplish or do at any time in the future, and the uncertainty that accompanies such a state of flux. The assumptions that hearing people make, that everyone has the same mainstream abilities. The way I myself make these assumptions, that other people can see or run or jump or be athletic or learn quickly or eat an unhindered diet. (This bothers me. I hate assumptions, and hate that I should make them. But, in the end, aren't they necessary for collective groups to function?) Finally, the resentment that a deaf individual with my level of proficiency (in academic accomplishment, in verbal skills, in whatever) should be considered "exceptional." The perception that deafness is some sort of terrible barrier against high achievement.

Don't get me wrong, deafness can be a terrible barrier. No one knows that better than I do. But what most frequently makes it terrible, in essence, isn't the competence of the deaf individual in question - it's simply that the way the mainstream world works is incompatible with what that individual needs to thrive. Language. Accessibility. Early intervention. Visual media. Understanding. A social and therapeutic safety net. That this ideal environment doesn't exist isn't anyone's fault, not entirely. It's a problem that I don't quite know the answer to, but it bothers me constantly. Deaf people (contrary to the old moniker) aren't dumb. But I look around and don't see any of them at Stanford. I doubt there are very many at Harvard, Princeton, or Yale, either. I see very few of them in high-functioning, mainstream professions. I literally never see cochlear implants when I'm out and about. I think I'd just about do backflips if I ever glimpsed one. Growing up, I never had a deaf role model - my world was full of hearing people, and I wasn't sure what to do with myself. Many of the deaf peers that I had while growing up currently struggle in school, or hate it, or gape that I can achieve grades and acknowledgements and milestones on par with my hearing peers. In such a world, it's easy for me to forget that other accomplished deaf individuals exist.

This could be cause for me to celebrate and feel smug, but it isn't. I am reminded of how much I want a world where it's simply ordinary for deaf individuals to succeed to a high standard. It's not just that I don't want to be singled out. It's that there is no real cognitive, biological reason why more people with hearing losses shouldn't have the opportunities and experiences that I have had. (Social, political, psychological, and individual trends come into effect instead - now those are the snarky ones.) Why me? Why should I have this, if others don't?

This isn't a post intended to lay out areas in which the framework of deaf life in America could improve - clearly there are many - but, rather, a bit of a meditative outburst. These outbursts happen to me every once in a while, and I think the current one is worthy food for thought. This year I'd like to grapple with such questions a bit more head-on, as well as reach out and find other deaf individuals who have succeeded in their areas of interest, and how, and why. Yeah, deafness can be a big deal - but at the same time it isn't. With the right kind of environment, it really isn't.

How to Have a Conversation With Someone When You Have No Idea What He/She Is Saying

Okay, I admit I do this more often than I would like. It happens everywhere, but especially in the UK, where the accents can be formidable for me to understand. Here goes:

1. At first, ask for repetition. Lots of it. When person looks startled or puzzled (since most hearing people aren't used to repeating/ making themselves clear), apologize and explain that you are deaf. Point to space-age-looking CI for "proof."

2. Explain to person that you need him/her to slow down, etc. Chances are he/she won't do this longer than about two seconds, but try anyway.

3. Focus as hard as possible, mentally scolding CI for flitting off to ooooh and ahhhh at noises several yards away.

4. Apologize some more when the conversation starts to seem non sequitur.

5. Realize, with a sinking feeling, that person is going to be impossible to lipread. Wonder if you should tell him/her this, then decide that this bluntness would be rude. Start thinking of alternative strategies to salvage the situation until you can extricate yourself.

5. Alternative strategy number one: watch person's face and nod encouragingly at strategic moments. This is known as the "deaf nod." (Oh, how you hate it.) Add "yeah," and "okay," and "right," when deemed appropriate.

6. Alternative strategy number two: keep the focus off of yourself. Ask questions. Try to figure out what person is talking about, if possible, and ask who/what/where/why/how/anything at all. As long as person is talking, he/she will be appeased. Even if you are not.

7. Alternative strategy number three: change the subject constantly. Make arbitrary comments and ask person what he/she thinks about them. Control the ball, try to ease the conversation into a place where you can feel comfortable.

8. Inevitably think about how ridiculous this is getting. But you've gotten through worse, so take a deep breath and keep going.

9. Alternative strategy number four: parrot person's words back to him/her, watch for validation that this is indeed what he/she said. If you're right, run with it. If you're not, back to square one.

10. Alternative strategy number five: if other acquaintances/friends come along, gratefully pass the conversation off to them. Let the group ramble along, insert a comment or two whenever possible, but otherwise sit and silently reassure yourself that you're okay, that silly situations like this don't reflect on your self-worth.

11. Alternative strategy num - heck, forget these strategies! This isn't working, and you're tired of pretending and wasting your time. Come up with an excuse to leave. Walk away feeling somewhat abashed, even though none of this was your fault.

So, most of the time the CI still hasn't quite kicked in for speech comprehension, especially with an unfamiliar speaker. The most frequent problem is simply that I can't pick out a person's voice from amidst other distracting noises: objects being moved around, other people chatting, cars passing, etc. Overstimulation leaves me unable to focus. When background noise isn't an issue, the CI does help guide and ease the pressure from lipreading, but it still can't stand alone in terms of understanding everything. That auditory memory of mine is developing, yes, but slowly. I'm realizing how much of a baby brain I've got to work with. That brain tries very hard, but it needs time. This is certainly an exercise in being patient!

National Disability Awareness Month

The month of October is National Disability Awareness Month in the U.S. (how can it be October already?!). Actually, as designated by Congress it's National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and anyone who has talked to me about my school and work experiences knows how strongly I feel about disability and level-playing-field accessibility vis-a-vis the common buzzphrase of "diversity."

But, that aside, I'd like to take a moment on this blog to promote real disability awareness - not only in the workplace but everywhere else. All too often, awareness is the crux that allows us to see past our first impressions to grasp a person's true substance and character. And all too often, a "disability" is just something that requires a change in perspective or lifestyle, not a tragic or overbearing handicap.

From my own standpoint, I see my disability not simply as that, a disability, but as one of the strongest shaping forces of my experience. More than anything else, being deaf has allowed me to better understand the things that are important in life, as well as the people who are truly worthwhile. So, in that regard, I can consider myself fortunate - and also obliged to help others find their way, even as I keep experimenting with mine.

Off my soapbox now. But never underestimate the impact of an open, inquiring, yet discerning mind.