Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!681!853.1!Stephen.White
From: Stephen.White@p1.f853.n681.z3.fidonet.org (Stephen White)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Total Communication and how useless it is.
Message-ID: <15642@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 16 Nov 90 15:16:20 GMT
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Index Number: 11735

 JW> English is a phonetically based language!  Period! The deaf child
 JW> does not have full access to English and won't.  There is a limit
 JW> to how much of the phonetic properties of English  you can teach
 JW> via the eyes. To think you will get it all through is  the same as
 JW> expecting tp be able to see a rainbow with the mouth!

This is quite true! I never considered it from this aspect.

My circumstances are rather unusual, in that I am profoundly deaf
from birth (off the charts) and yet I speak perfectly, with only a
slight monotone which only hi-fi buffs have barely managed to pick
up.

An audiologist (internationally renown) cites me as the only
example of someone he doesn't know how I do what I do... I've told
this bit before in ABLED, but over a year ago:

I was about 5 or 6, and Dr Rice said to me "Stephen, I have
something very important to tell you... You will always be deaf.
There is nothing anyone can do for your deafness - in 40 years
time, you will still be deaf."

I replied "That's OK, Dr Rice. In 40 years time, I'll only be deaf,
you'll be dead!"

 JW> Yesthere are many exceptions butthey are usually people who becae
 JW> deafened later in life or are hard of hearing or profoundly and
 JW> sevrely  deaf people with poor self-images-meaning they have yet
 JW> to accept their  deafness and live the farce that they are not
 JW> "truly" deaf.

I know I'm deaf, but I don't use sign language, simply because
everyone I interact with is hearing. I did pick up sign language
extremely fast when I was attending that awful school for the deaf
for one year, but have not since signed at all - even though I do
think I would probably sign better now than before since it is
something that gets better the longer it sits in your brain.

--
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