What would ever happen if a Deaf person told a police officer, “I am hearing impaired.” Would they end up having to take the sobriety test for a suspected DUI?

Just kidding. Just a little humor here.

It’s an unspoken linguistic etiquette in the hearing world to soften the label they apply to disabled individuals. There was a movement to rid the term disabled and instead say “differently-abled.” The hearing world thinks they are taking the sting out of the word Deaf by normalizing it to be more like hearing people. It’s like when they refer to a child who has mental retardation as “special.” The same thing goes for softening or normalizing the word Deaf by calling it something hearing-like. Sadly, though, they don’t get that we prefer to be called Deaf.

Thanks for the edit error. I will make the correction.

It is indeed a little bit odd where some highly educated Deaf people still think of us as hearing impaired, or non-hearing. Some even say, “hard-of-hearing.” Should we assume they are not as educated they or we think they are, or is it simply a case of pure ignorance? Or pure innocence, just simply not understanding how things should be phrased?

Example: Newspaper writers, who write about Deaf people, often call us “Deaf and mute.” Deaf people really don’t accept that term, even I don’t like it. Imagine a newspaper writer – they are educated, have journalism degrees, and get a job at a major newspaper, they write articles or columns on a regular basis, and are pretty well known around the state, country, or the world for their writing. And they still call us “Deaf and mute.”

This odd thing, I still cannot grasp the concept of a writer in literary ignorance would use a term unacceptable to the Deaf community. I don’t get it. Only one word I can think of – ignorance. Or just you know, certain writers can be undereducated or they simply don’t want to put in the time to research for a more proper etiquette acceptable to Deaf people. If I was a hearing writer for a newspaper writing about a Deaf individual, or Deaf people, I would put in the time to research it so I could write an article and not look like a dud writing something I don’t know anything about.

FYI, in the video captions, the caption read hearing impaired as “hearing impired.”

Like the one comment suggested, create a visual food chart like McDonalds has done. Teach a few basic signs for the work place. It doesn’t take a lot of time, but the time saved in trying to communicate will be substantial.

LaRonda

Helene and Karin forwarded a link to your blog post about the Seasons of Change retreat in CO. So honored to read of your experience of the Seasons of Change model.

Have fun incorporating it into your work with your niche. I know you’ll continue to discover new layers as you work with it. I continue to learn from it myself.

So great that you and your Mom were able to share the retreat together. Beautiful!

All the best in your journey.

1) Educating the co-workers on communication and getting attention in the least annoying fashion. Training either through booklets like I developed recently or in live sit-down training sessions.

2) Visual notifications for phone, fire, and other emergency situations.

Richard