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Being deaf

davidpeter.me

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Re: Being deaf

#51

Post by shakesbeard »

jyothi wrote: post #13
citricsquid wrote: post #4

The way he talks about office communication and missing out on things reminds me very much of being a remote worker, I don't think I can begin to imagine how frustrating it would be to be in the office and feel like you weren't there. A few years ago there was a wonderful post on somethingawful.com from a deaf person who answered questions and talked about his life experiences, there was hours and hours of content to…

That is an excellent point you bring up there: remote workers are very close to being deaf. There are so many things you feel like expressing - small things not worthy of a call or an even an email - a chat works but still not the same effect. Being a remote worker is like being both deaf and dumb. I hope one day we would have the Cisco tele presence affordable in small offices too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQpB…

I don't think this is accurate. As a deaf person you see when conversations take place, and when you are excluded from them. As a remote worker you don't get this consistent reminder.

You are correct, that it might be similar when trying to do small talk, though.

PS: I work 100% remote.

Re: Being deaf

#52

Post by shade »

nelmaven wrote: post #42

Someone should tell Google to add speech balloons in their glasses to the people that you're talking too, like in videogames. That would be revolutionary.

Like the author, I'm deaf as well. Real time captioning functionality using an improved version of Google's speech-to-text technology (the current implementation on Youtube is VERY hit or miss) was pretty much my first thought when I saw those glasses.

That's something I've been dreaming about for 20 years or so.

Re: Being deaf

#53

Post by phatbyte »

nelmaven wrote: post #42

Someone should tell Google to add speech balloons in their glasses to the people that you're talking too, like in videogames. That would be revolutionary.

Although this would be awesome, I don't know how we could isolate sound source and make it perceptible to the audio transcriber, on a street with lots of people walking around and talking this would be complicated.

Nevertheless this would be a great idea.

Re: Being deaf

#54

Post by welp »

Wow, this article has hit be pretty hard as well -- I have been profoundly deaf since I was about three and a half. The fact that my deafness hit quite late means that I'm pretty proficient at oral English (thanks Mom and Dad!), it does mean that I miss out on a lot at work or in my social groups.

I have had to put so much effort into getting out there and meeting new people, but now that I have, I wouldn't give up any of my friends for the world as they are pretty amazing and make sure that I'm included in everything. As in anotherdeaf's story[0], if I'm at a pub or MacDonald's or something, and they know I've not heard something they will quickly step in to sort it out. None of them get embarrassed or anything when I asked them to repeat what someone else said, and all of them are happy to say the same thing over and over until I've got it -- I guess what I'm trying to say is that when you've found your friends and trained them up, they'll stick right by you. People always ask me how I got to be so confident, but the truth is I'm really not, I'm always terrified of meeting new people but I put myself out there and make a huge effort to talk to them, ask questions and just get on with them in general. It is horrible and I'm always exhausted afterward, but the rewards make it worth it. Just stick at it, talk to people, and you'll be good to go.

Have you taken lipreading classes ever? If not, you should definitely consider it. It means that I can happily talk to people in swimming pools, e.t.c., when I can't wear my hearing aid.

Insofar as work is concerned, I've never had any issues with special arrangements for interviews -- I tend to email recruiters directly, but IBM, Google and Twitter (as well as other smaller companies) have been more than happy to make special arrangements for me. Always, always ask, the only tip I would give you is to put an obviously fake telephone number in (e.g., 000000000).

Oh, and don't worry about the girls. If they're worth it then they will come to you :) And definitely have kids. Even if they ARE deaf, they will still get a lot out of life, and things have been improving so much since I was at primary school all those years ago.

Also if (any of) you want to just shoot shit or have someone to chat to about deaf stuff, my email address is in my bio, so feel free to send me an email or add me on gtalk.

[0] http://hackerne.ws/item?id=4002231

EDIT: (Also I have just sent out that article and links to some of the comments in here to my best friends, partly as a way to say thanks to them for all the trouble they've put in for me over the years, and also to help them understand where I'm coming from some of the time.)

Re: Being deaf

#55

Post by phatbyte »

mrspeaker wrote: post #32
miyudreams wrote: post #16

When you work in or travel to another country speaking another language that you don't know, it feels like you are really left out. Doing anything requires more effort. You feel lost and confused. Not understanding when your coworkers speak their language eventually becomes frustrating. Of course in this case, you're out for an adventure and new learning experiences, so it's not the same as actually be physically dea…

I'm not deaf (actually, one of my ears doesn't work, but hey...) but I understand completely what this guy says about feeling like he's missing out on everything - I moved to a France to work, and my French is... poor. Everyone speaks English, but only to me. Figuring out what's going on at a high level is really difficult (me: "Where is everyone going?" them: "To the new office." me: "WTF? We have a new office?!") b…

You should consider doing a french language intensive course, also, try to get out of the house as much as possible and talk to people and friends.

The best way to learn a new language for me it's to talk to the natives daily, even if you don't understand anything first :P. Good luck

Re: Being deaf

#56

Post by devolve »

bad_user wrote: post #19
mechanical_fish wrote: post #12

I could try to find a deaf girl. However, I don’t want my kids to have an increased chance of deafness. This sounds like a classic case of premature optimisation. Cross that bridge when you get there. Thousands of other deaf parents have done so. Their kids were fine. Even if they come out hearing, we’d need to make sure they’re raised right — who will teach them how to talk? Let me respectfully suggest that this is…

One thing that does happen is that hearing kids of deaf parents become fluent in both ASL and a spoken language This also happens inside families that migrated to another country. The parents do not speak the foreign language withing the walls of their own house (the foreign language being an inconvenience for them), but that doesn't stop the children from being very fluent in both languages from a very young age.

As a person who was raised with two different household languages at different times, I can offer anecdotal evidence that this holds true. My refugee parents decided that their native language (Romanian) would be an obstacle for me in their new country (Thailand) and went for English instead. Then we got asylum in Sweden and I learned Swedish in kindergarten and so on.

In Sweden my parents started speaking Romanian at home, which I also picked up. It became a coherent triangle of languages, where home we spoke Romanian, outside of home Swedish, and English on TV and in school.

Re: Being deaf

#57

Post by neilk »

jeffool wrote: post #44
jacobr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't get exposed to language nearly as much as a hearing person. Also, sign languages don't use regular English words, so your vocabulary will not be expanded that much in conversations.

I won't pretend to know about literacy rates among deaf people, but I want to underline jacobr's point here: ASL is not "English with hands" any more than spoken Japanese is "English with different sounds". It's a different language, with different grammar, and different rules. Don't let the "American" throw you off. They may use familiar words and letters when writing, but you can say the same about many European la…

Sign languages are proper languages of their own, and even if they are invented by hearing people, when a deaf community adopts the language it usually diverges quickly from the hearing culture language.

So, you're right that there was a precedent to ASL that came from France but don't assume that ASL is much like French.

Re: Being deaf

#58

Post by tocomment »

devolve wrote: post #56
bad_user wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that does happen is that hearing kids of deaf parents become fluent in both ASL and a spoken language This also happens inside families that migrated to another country. The parents do not speak the foreign language withing the walls of their own house (the foreign language being an inconvenience for them), but that doesn't stop the children from being very fluent in both languages from a very young age.

As a person who was raised with two different household languages at different times, I can offer anecdotal evidence that this holds true. My refugee parents decided that their native language (Romanian) would be an obstacle for me in their new country (Thailand) and went for English instead. Then we got asylum in Sweden and I learned Swedish in kindergarten and so on. In Sweden my parents started speaking Romanian a…

So you learned English from TV? I thought I've always heard that didn't work.

Re: Being deaf

#59

Post by devolve »

tocomment wrote: post #58
devolve wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person who was raised with two different household languages at different times, I can offer anecdotal evidence that this holds true. My refugee parents decided that their native language (Romanian) would be an obstacle for me in their new country (Thailand) and went for English instead. Then we got asylum in Sweden and I learned Swedish in kindergarten and so on. In Sweden my parents started speaking Romanian a…

So you learned English from TV? I thought I've always heard that didn't work.

No. I learned English at home, and I kept up with it through TV and school. Also, I've always preferred to read in English, which probably helped a lot.

Re: Being deaf

#60

Post by [deleted] »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #12

I could try to find a deaf girl. However, I don’t want my kids to have an increased chance of deafness. This sounds like a classic case of premature optimisation. Cross that bridge when you get there. Thousands of other deaf parents have done so. Their kids were fine. Even if they come out hearing, we’d need to make sure they’re raised right — who will teach them how to talk? Let me respectfully suggest that this is…

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