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hristopher Patterson, another deaf professor at UGA, agrees with the importance and need for communication and acceptance between Deaf community and those outside it. Patterson was born hearing but became sick with spinal meningitis when he was only one week old. He was raised primarily by his grandparents until he was 15. While under their care, he started school at only two-years-old. For high school, he attended Model Secondary School for the Deaf in Washington, D.C. located at Gallaudet University. During this time, Patterson developed and learned to appreciate his Deaf identity. At 17-years-old, Patterson moved back to Georgia on his own and came out as gay, falling in love with his partner only a year later. The couple moved to Savannah, where Patterson graduated from high school and was the first deaf person to graduate from Armstrong Atlantic State University with a bachelor’s of science in special education. Since then Patterson has taught in many places including, ASL classes at UGA. Patterson is also currently a doctorate student in the Early Childhood Education system at UGA. This area is especially important to Patterson, who strives to end prejudice toward members of the Deaf community. “Teaching American Sign Language can make a difference in the Deaf community through the ASL students,” Patterson says. Language barriers and constant immersion in a primarily “hearing world” shape deaf people to regularly adapt as they grow older, even for simple, daily situations. “It can be challenging at times because there are communication barriers with people on campus,” Patterson says. “But some of my ASL students wave and ask how I am doing when I’m walking on campus. It makes me feel better knowing that there are a small number of students that do use sign language and that I can acknowledge them and be acknowledged as well.” Outside of the academic sphere there are other challenges, ranging from doctors appointments to seeing concerts. For example, a new movie theater in Athens lacks full accessibility for deaf people, with infrequent showings of movies with captions. “Where is the equal opportunity for me to experience the
movies like the hearing people?” Patterson says. decisions affecting these children’s future in Deaf culture. Debra Teesdale, the third ASL professor at UGA, was As Teesdale exemplified with her discontent with hearing born to hearing parents with no knowledge about Amer- aids and speech therapy, there is no one universal path that ican Sign Language or Deaf culture. Unlike Leffler’s, parents with deaf children should follow. Teesdale’s parents never learned to sign with her. “As for deaf children and adults, do not try to ‘fix’ their At 6-months-old, Teesdale was diagnosed with identity as Deaf,” she says. “No one has ever succeeded in hearing loss in both ears due to a rare hereditary ge- this and no one ever will. Deaf souls are inside these chilnetic disorder called Waardenburg Syndrome. dren whether doctors know it or not. Once those are unGrowing up in the late 1970s in the Southern sheltered, the world becomes a better place.” United States, where there was little emphasis on Fundamental steps in the right direction for deaf child Deaf culture, Teesdale immediately enrolled in care come in many forms and through many associations, speech therapy and wore hearing aids before her such as the American Society for Deaf Children founded in eventual exposure to ASL. 1967 as a parent-helping parent organization. The ASDC Teesdale says her parents encouraged these strives, above all else, to do what is best for each child. treatments to help her learn to speak or lip-read, Additionally, this organization refers parents to to a wide but she remembers these events negatively. range of information sources, including deaf individuals, “Having profound hearing loss in both ears re- families with deaf children, schools for the deaf and local, sulted in a much more difficult process of receiving state and national parent and deaf adult organizations. and processing information,” Teesdale says. “For me, Deaf children allowed to enter the Deaf community will wearing hearing aids did not assist much. In fact, they find a network of experiences shared with people who can gave me headaches.” tell similar developmental stories. Teesdale says, when she was young, she would turn off As a child, Teesdale says she recalls being blind to Deaf her hearing aids from the time she caught the bus to ele- culture as she had no deaf role models. mentary school in the morning to the time she returned Yet she had a firm determination that deafness was not home in the afternoon. an impairment. She was heavily involved in school activi“The only time I turned them on was at home as my par- ties such as theater, sports and clubs but admitted it reents often tested my ability to hear,” she says. quired patience and proving herself every day. According to the National Institute on Deafness and The pinnacle moment for Teesdale was her admission to Other Communication Disorders, about two to three out Gallaudet University. Teesdale describes studying at Galof every 1,000 children in the U.S. are born with a detectable laudet as being the biggest moment in her life, the moment level of hearing loss in one or both ears, and more than 90 when she discovered her identity in the Deaf culture. percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents. De“I was in awe of seeing flying hands everywhere. I felt as if spite good intentions, hearing parents can often feel over- my soul was finally released from being sheltered from livwhelmed or incapable of properly caring for a deaf child, ing the ‘hearing’ life,” Teesdale says. “I was starved growing which can result in improper procedures or actions that up for my language and identity.” reduce deaf children’s likelihood of using ASL. Teesdale says the support she received from deaf role “The medical response is to ‘fix’ that deaf child and not models at Gallaudet shaped her into who she is today. introduce them to Deaf culture,” Leffler says. “There’s so “I was honored to meet countless strong deaf role models many stories of deaf kids who get im... Graduating from Gallaudet University plants and they speak and sign but it gave me the right tools and confidence can hit later that they’re deprived of ... a to tackle any type of challenge as a Deaf language most natural to them.” woman afterwards,” she says. For Teesdale, rejecting the use of her For many deaf people, Gallaudet can hearing aids was liberating. bring the same sense of acceptance and “Growing up attending speech thercommunity. As Teesdale says, finding apy and wearing hearing aids made me deaf role models can be challenging. This feel unaccepted as the person I was born difficulty only intensifies the need to preto become,” Teesdale says. “My parents, serve and teach Deaf culture to children. who were devastated at the news of my As a responsible and educated deaf deafness, wanted the best for me. They person, Teesdale feels it is her duty to DEBRA TEESDALE followed the physician and therapist recgive back to the Deaf community by proommendations. These turned out not to moting Deaf awareness and educating be ... best for me.” the world on the importance of respectThis negative stigma—and natural preference toward ing the Deaf language and identity. those who can hear—often results in auditory corrections For the past 14 plus years she has been educating stufor deaf children, as Teesdale experienced. dents that ASL is just like spoken languages, doing so by “As a deaf student I felt that the teachers for the deaf comparing linguistic patterns between ASL and English. were not doing enough for the deaf children—too often as “The aim is to have them experience the cultural differaudists—oppressing the deaf children with the attitude of ences between the two worlds. This should be an eye-open‘I know more than you,’” Patterson says. ing experience for them that they will remember and Audism, discrimination against Deaf people, can range share,” Teesdale says. from mild stereotypes to forced authority by doctors. Ultimately, the importance of preserving this unique culAs Leffler explains, there should be no stigma around be- tural community cannot be overlooked, nor can the experiing deaf. He, like many other deaf people, firmly believe in ences that deaf people offer the world. the idea of “Deaf-gain.” This ideal is rooted in the fact that “It’s always important not to judge a book by it’s cover, deaf people are not lacking the ability to hear, but rather, just as you shouldn’t judge us by our silence. We are just as have gained the abilities and identity of being Deaf. loud as hearing people,” Leffler says. “You can write with The implications for deaf children pose especially big me, and I can sign with you. Put your hearing bias aside decisions for their hearing parents who must make huge before you judge and really walk in my shoes.”
As for deaf children and adults, do not try to ‘fix’ their identity as Deaf. No one has ever succeeded.”
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