Deafness in the Family: Radnor, Kannapell, Burke, B. Ennis, Aiello, Sonnenstrahl JUN 28 1981

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Okay, welcome.

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This is our last workshop of the day. The only other thing we have planned after it is an introductory sign language lesson in this tent. That will begin a little before 5 o'clock. Our workshop this time is entitled "Deafness in the Family" and our participants are going to share with you some of their own experiences as deaf members of families, families that sometimes include hearing people and sometimes

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rather remarkably, have very few hearing people in them. And I'm going to begin workshop by asking our participants to introduce themselves to you by telling you their name and whose deaf and whose hearing in their families

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So you get the beginnings of the picture. Now we go onto talk and tell some stories. Ok. Lily You begin

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Lily Burke: My name is Lily Burke and I am from Maryland but I was raised i New York. I work at a government agency, Veteran's Administration. Right over there. And I also teach sign language

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at Gallatin College.

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Speaker 1: Your family?

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My family, Oh that's important. My family. I have a deaf family. All my life have lived with deaf parents. My uncle, my sister's deaf. I have four children, 2 who are deaf and

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2 who are hearing. Thank you

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Transcription:

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William Ennis: Bill Ennis from Greenbelt, Maryland. You see green belt--

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oh. Ha, I wore the wrong belt today. Oh. There. This is my neighbor too.

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I work right over there, USDA Department of Agriculture-- Are you following me okay?

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Um, oh, uh-- My parents are hearing like all of you. I have two brothers.

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Ar--he--well an interpreter, one of my brothers is an interpreter, he's got a vacation today, a brother who is deaf, he's doing fine in Texas.

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[[Moderator]] And your kids?

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William Ennis: Oh [[laughing]], I forgot to tell you about myself.

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Yeah, I have a wife. 14 years this summer,

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I have wonderful kids. 12 year old boy. He's hearing. He's-- probably someday will become deaf. Progressive loss.

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[SILENCE]

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William Ennis: She reads me so slow. [[background laughter]] I have a daughter, Bonnie Joe. She's 9. Hearing.

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[[Moderator]] Thank you. Steffie?

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{SPEAKER NAME="Stephanie Aiello"}} My name is Stephanie Aiello. I still go to school in Beltsv--Belts Junior High.

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[[Interpreter speaking for self]] Really? [[Stephanie answering through interpreter]] Yes, really. And I have two parents who are deaf and one hearing sister.

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[[Moderator]] Thank you.

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Debbie Sonnenstrahl: Hi, my name is Debbie Sonnenstrahl. It's a long name.

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And I live right near here, and I work for Gallaudet College.

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Actually, I teach Art History, but I'm on a special project working with museums, helping them to develop programs for the deaf.

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I come from a large family, all of them who are hearing, but in my house I had my mother, my father, my grandmother, my grandfather, my great aunt, and my brother.

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And all of them are hearing. And here is a twist: I have two deaf kids myself.

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[[Moderator]] Thank you. Barbara.

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Barbara Kannapell: My name is Barbara Kannapell. I live in Washington DC, near Catholic University area.

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I work at Gallaudet College as a linguistics specialist, working with a group of people who are developing materials.

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Also president of Deaf Pride Incorporated. I teach sign language classes at the University of Maryland and I'm trying to complete my studies in social linguistics at Georgetown University.

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My family is all deaf. Mother and father and aunts and uncles and everyone except I have one sister who is hearing, and she's 4 years older than me.

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[[Moderator]]Thank you very much [[Applause]]

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[[Moderator]] We have a panel of real experts here, and one question that a lot of people seem to wonder about who don't belong to families who have deaf members is:

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How do you communicate in the family, with one another? If you're all deaf possibly that's easier to understand.

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But how do hearing and deaf members in the family communicate? Could you all say a little bit about that, just maybe share some kind of experience?

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Speaker 1 : Who wants to begin?

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[SILENCE]

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Speaker 3: I know my case is much different from theirs. I was born deaf.

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So it was a shock to my father, who was a baby doctor, a pediatrician.

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He had been brainwashed by the John Tracy Clinic in California, who is a great advocate of the Oralist system.

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So my parents forbid me to sign during my growing years. I didn't learn how to sign until I entered Gallaudet College when I was 17 years old.

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So when it came to communication system hmm. She asked me that question, my mind started going back and racing back thinking how did I communicate with my parents?

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You might notice that when I sign right now, I move my lips. I do talk somewhat but I refuse to use my voice in front of an audience like this. I can't.

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I'll turn it off. So when I was growing up my parents would stand facing me and speak very plain and clear to me. If I didn't understand, they would repeat it again.

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If I didn't understand again, they would just use different words with the same meaning, so I could try to get the picture.

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You can tell, you know, a long and tedious process. It took me a long time to get used to it. But as you know, when you live with people

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everyday for 24 hours a day, you become very used to their lips, their lip movements. So communication was pretty easy in my house.

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But I have one pet peeve, ugh. You have to understand how, you know how parents are. They're so

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proud of their children and they wanna show them off. My pet peeve is that every time we had relatives or friends visit my house, my mother would say, "Talk to them.

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Show them how, how you can talk." And I'd [cough cough] "Hello, how are you?"

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(SPEAKER 1) But that's how we communicated and my parents were always including me

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in everything, no matter if we had company, my mother would always sit next to me

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and say "She's talking about this cousin who's getting married next month,"

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in just a few words, simple sentences.

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(SPEAKER 2) Thank you for sharing that. [[Clapping]]

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[[Silence]]

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(SPEAKER 3) I guess I happen to be the rose among the thorn here. [[Laughter]]

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[[Deep exhale]] [[Laughter]]

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Ok. Hmm, what was I gonna say? Oh, my parents are hearing.

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I was the firstborn boy. And they found out I was deaf when I was two.

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And then my next brother, who was hearing also--he's hearing, yeah--and then as we were growing older,

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my brother and I used to make homemade signs so that we could communicate.

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Then we went, when I went to school, I went to a deaf school and I learned American Sign Language ASL from the school.

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Then I learned signed English to talk with the teacher, and I found my mother would be learning signs also.

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And I noticed I had to do that three ways of communicating:

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My brother, who was so good I could say anything creatively and we could sign, I'm fine.

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Then my mother and my teacher were pretty much the same, signing exact English. [[Laughter]]

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And then my kids in school yeah, you know, we'd say anything we want and we'd just talk there.

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By the time, my brother, who is hearing,

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he started picking up signs from mother and then he started learning from what I was doing at school,

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and he would start dropping the homemade signs.

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And the three became two. And now we've got two. Man I had to have two languages, I could do with

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[[?]] deal with two now. Then I noticed my mother and brother began to kind of combine the English

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and the ASL and called it "pigeoned sign English." [[Laughter]]

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I guess, that's right, PSE? [[Laughter]]

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Now, talking about my two kids, they're both hearing.

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My wife talks very well. She lost her hearing when she was 14, and so she still has good speech.

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Me, I do it all, my hands do all my talking.

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And now with my kids born, Billy, Bonnie--

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"Milk, milk," you say it again and again and again, "Milk, milk, milk, milk, milk"--

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they learned sign language before they learned how to speak.

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They would be saying "Milk, milk, milk, milk, milk."

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That's how we communicated, fine. And my kids are grown now and they can sign at home,

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with my mother--with my wife, they talk.

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[[clapping]]
Unknown 1: Thank you

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Lily Burke: What am I supposed to do bow? Am I supposed to Bow?

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Unknown 1: I think you can ignore them. Lily, did you have something you wanted to add?

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Lily Burke: All my life, I had no problems communicating at my home because my family was all deaf as I said before and we'd just all talk all my life.

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Just signing all the time. My grandmother can speak. She knows my voice so I can talk back to her

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and in school, until I got married.

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My first husbands family was deaf, no problems.

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Then my second husband his family was all hearing.

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And I joined a hearing family, it was very interesting. Communication was different.

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My mother in law speaks very clearly.

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And later on, a few years later I realized she refused to learn signs.

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She thought signs were terrible.

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And I became very impatient as I grew older. Talking to her, and I just got bored and tired of it.

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So, as my daughter was growing up, she would be interpreting for us. My mother in law speaks and so my daughter would sign and be our in between.

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And then I met a lot of frustrations communicating with them.

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My mother in law really didn't understand how we felt.

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The family would come and they'd be talking important and I'd be looking around and I didn't have any idea what they were saying so I would have to ask my daughter to interpret. They'd never really shared with us, they didn't realize my family I had no problems with that.

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I have four children, 2 deaf and 2 hearing.

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The two hearing grew up signing. My older boy he's - he's sloppily signs but you know how boys are.

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My last girl, she signs sloppy but her signs now she's good, no problems at home.

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But one time on Thanksgiving Day at night, the whole family got together and I was looking around, and we were all sharing communication and it was beautiful.

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Unknown 1: Thank you.

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Stephie? You have a hearing sister, right?

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Would you like to tell us a little bit about what it's like at home?

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Okay, as I told you, I have a hearing sister, and we both can't communicate smoothly because she signs and my parents and myself taught her as she was growing up.

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We played games with her, with her friends, her -- sometimes we'd play games and her friends wouldn't understand, so I'd have to ask her -

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my sister - to interpret, you know things like that.

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We get along very easily. Sometimes, she'd go off with her friends talking and I'd feel left out, and I'd try to, you know, go after them and say

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"well, you know, what are you talking about? What are you playing now?" And we'd get along just fine.

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Thank you.

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[[clapping]] Barbara, would you like to add something?

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Growing up in a deaf family, communication was fine. We had no problems, like language development among deaf children of deaf parents is the same as hearing children of hearing parents.

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I was born and I started signing, meaning... concentrating on the meanings and everything and just signing.

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I didn't know a lot of English words yet, but I made the connection between signing and English later in my life. But just -- new signs, and when my hearing sister...

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I thought it was very strange because we had hearing children of deaf parents become automatically expert signers. But that's not true of my sister.

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We use homemade signs, and she's good at finger spelling. She can finger spell very good.

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I have to be really good at reading her finger spelling, but homemade signs, mouth movements, and so on, and as I grew up, I look back and I'm wondering why my sister isn't, you know, uh, as fluent in signs.

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I asked her why one time and she said: "Well, I can understand my - our parents," you know, that we - that they have deaf speech,

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but she can understand their speech well enough so she didn't feel it was necessary to learn sign language. And I said: "What about me?" I can't talk!

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And she s- she thought, well we communicate fine, so.

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[[clapping & laughter]]

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How 'bout games as kids? What kinds of games can you share with - with hearing kids, whether they're your brothers and sisters or your friends, your playmates?

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There special things you could tell 'em about?

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Bill?

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I guess I'm very fortunate. I happened to be the oldest kid on the block. [[Laughter]] I do all the talking right here.

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So I get all the kids get together "what do you wanna do?" ya know once in awhile in the mornings we'd get together and I'd tell my brother to sit there and interpret everything I said, say to the boys and I say what did you do this morning, wanna play baseball game lets vote and the kids and ahh nah nah.

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Okay what about football? Raise your hand. Nah nah nah.

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What do you want to play hide and seek? Well now talking about hide and seek, we can vote but with my little brother, John Mark.

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He's the hearing one.

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Okay I have two brothers -- two deaf, my other one is deaf and John Mark's hearing.

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Whenever we'd play hide and go seek it was you know it's such a simple game but I never realized that when you play that game, you have to be very quiet.

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Uhuhh that's something I missed, something I didn't know.

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My brothers, every time we'd say ready one, two three, we'd go hide you know I'd be [[panting]] you know and my brother, John Mark would be looking around and he'd find us.

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You know, and he'd always find us immediately.

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Finally, my brother said, well, you know, I have to admit I use my hearing.

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I can hear you walking, you breathing, and I can find you guys, see? And I said, that's not fair.

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So me and my other brother were trying to figure out what to do so we got some cotton pads and we'd put them in John Mark's ear. okay?

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[[laughter]] I can hear that. You can hear that? You can't be we put cotton balls in your ears, you'd have to be deaf. No, you can. Hmm okay.

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So we got some baby oil and dipped the cotton balls in the baby oil, stuck it in his ear. [[clap clap]]

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I can still hear what he says. He said, "huh ah we have another idea so we got an old ski cap you know, you know what I mean the band, the ski band those little ones for skiing?" No not a bathing no no no no not a bathing cap, a ski band you know the ski band ok so we put that over the cotton which was in his ears. He could still hear us oh my god. Ah so we got a towel and we tied the towel around his head real tight and here he was with the big head walking around. He couldn't hear. You can hear? Oh alright,ok now you're it. So we split and you have to count. So we now had such a good time ,we split and we were hiding and we were waiting and waiting. Huh my brother, John Mark was so awkward, he was looking her on and looking her on trying to make we were trying to make noise and things, playing with them and he walked right by us. It was great. We hid for waiting and waiting for hours and he was walking around looking for us so really we had a good time that day. ahh [[clapping]] Thank you very much, it's a great story. Would anyone else like to add some games you can play with, hearing kids ? Would anyone in the audience like to add somethings? Wave your hand wildly. How about you stephie, Stephie?

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{Speaker 1} Do you have anything?

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{Speaker 2} Nothing unusual.

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{Speaker 1} Okay, well that's fine. Let me just ask our audience if they have any questions for these panelists. We're talking about deafness in the family. Yes, what is your question?

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[[indistinct speaking]]

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{Speaker 1} The question is, how do you drive if you are deaf. Whether or not you're in the family [laughter] it's alright, but...

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{Speaker 2} I believe all of us, except many not Stephy, do drive cars we don't need ears to drive a car. I know that many people ask me the same question.

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They can't believe deaf people can drive, well we just use our eyes. Now, you're asking a question about a fire truck, and things like that when they're behind us we're watching very carefully, we're very alerted.

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Sometimes we'll see the lights before hearing people who are sitting next to me can see it.

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After a while, they'll say, "I hear a siren," and I'll say, "yeah I already beat you, I saw it first." That often happens to me. Except one day, one day, I drove on sixth street, going to Gallaudet College on Florida avenue and eighth street.

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And I was on sixth street which is a one way street, going across eighth street and all these people were looking at me and I remember, I was driving in a very small sports car, very, very little box.

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And people were all looking at me and I was saying hmm, and I would look in the rearview mirror, and go oh my God, there a fire truck was right behind me.

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This big huge fire truck [Laughter] and I didn't hear it and as I turned around, he was using his siren or something, I don't know if the lights weren't working, but they had to use a fog horn. They were using a fog horn.

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And I was, oh my God. It was really loud, right into my ears. And I quickly pulled over and they took off. Whoo.

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[Clapping]

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{Speaker 2} Maybe you know when you're driving, you close your windows, you can't hear the fire sirens that often. It's the same thing. You, we are very alerted with our eyes, but some years ago, a judge said that the deaf are safe drivers, are safer drivers.

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{Speaker 1} That's true, that's true. They have better driving records than the hearing.

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Speaker 1: It's true that we're pretty good drivers, but sometimes, some like, leadfoots, you know? That's a problem, that's a problem sometimes. Speaker 2: Are there any other questions from the audience? Yes. Audience Member: What's the best way to learn? Is it just in, in the process of learning, or do these books actually help you more? Speaker 2: Do you mean learn sign language? Yeah, the question is what's the best way to learn sign language.

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Speaker 1: You're all teachers, Debbie's saying. We have three sign language teachers up here on the panel. Three of us can answer the question. Oooh, real competitive, who wants to be the first to get up? Okay, fair time, fair time, equal time for everyone. Okay. I don't know how- how long does it take to learn Spanish and French? Two, three years? 'Kay, the more you associate with people, Spanish or French people, that means you can learn faster.

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Okay, it's the same with sign language. You have to- American Sign Language, you have to lean how to use your hands, and your body language, and your facial expression. Many hearing people are not used to- 'when you're learning signs, they use their hands and that's all.' No, you really have to use your facial expression, and that takes a little more time to learn. The more you associate with Deaf people, the better you can learn sign language.

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Speaker 2: Thank you. I'd like to butt in here for a second to tell you that, uh, two things: first that in about five minutes, we will be offering an introductory sign language class here, right in this tent, if you'd care to stay and pick up a little bit.

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And also that several people have come up to me during this festival and asked me, perhaps because some of our participants were busy, what the best book is to learn sign language from. Well, we deliberately did not include sign language instruction books in the small book sales collection that we have in the crafts tent. We have books about the Deaf community, its history, its customs and so on, but we do not have books about learning sign language. You need a teacher, right?

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[speaker 1] Yeah, yes yes yes, really, real life model, a real life model really helps.

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A book you can, eh, copy the sign, but it's just not the same.

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A real life model to communicate with, and movements of the body, and the facial expression, you know, you don't want a bland thing, you, like by a book.

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In many books, sign language is all over, and they're so many books and many of them, unfortunately are outdated.

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There are new books developing all the time and you have to keep up with them.

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It's better to go to a class, I think and associate with deaf people.

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I guess it depends on like, the one question over there was uh, a book you could learn fine, but it depends on the time, the space, if you have time to go to class fine, but if you don't have time you could read a book, but it's not always going to be fluent.

00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:01.000
You're not, but it'll help you get a good start of course.

00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:10.000
Then later on if you can go to the classes, it'll be a big help. [speaker 2] That's true yes, thank you, no, yes.

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:35.000
[SILENCE]

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:52.000
The question is do you have to go to Gallaudet College to begin learning sign language the right way, or can you go to your nearby community college for a good start. [laughter]

00:28:52.000 --> 00:29:03.000
[speaker 1]Me? Me, anyone? Prob-, nah, Bill says nah, nah, no, but, but, I'm very biased.

00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:18.000
I think Gallaudet College is a good place to go because you can meet more people there, and there are many classes offered there, and it's a good chance to meet people. I think, it's easier.

00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:31.000
[speaker 2] That's of course true, but here in the Washington area, there are many, many, many different people who offer sign language agencies, schools, colleges, adult education programs that offer sign language classes.

00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:43.810
Begin anywhere, begin at the nearest place. And once you begin, see where you need to go to get the next step, okay? I'd like to, to ask, I guess maybe I wouldn't.

00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:57.000
[speaker 1] I, I think perhaps we've given the impression that you have to, but that it's only hearing people who don't know sign language,

00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:04.000
and that's of course that's not really true. And Debbie was talking about this before a little bit,

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:12.000
and I wonder if you might like to say something finally, cause we haven't given you really much time to say things just now.

00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:24.000
If you'd like to say something about what it was like when you finally went to Gallaudet college and couldn't sign at all, and everyone there signed.

00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:32.000
[speaker 2] Ah, okay, I get the picture. I'll make it fast, short, and sweet, I hope. Okay.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:42.000
When I first went into Gallaudet college, I couldn't sign at all, and it was the first time I saw so many flying fingers,

00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:52.000
and you know what I did every night? I had to take two aspirins every night because I'd be getting headaches.

00:30:52.000 --> 00:31:00.000
All the signing, ugh. But afterwards I started to develop a taste for it, and the headaches went away.

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:01.000
[applause]

00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:07.000
[speaker 1] Thank you very much. Before I make announcements, let's thank all of our participants for this.

00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:14.000
[applause]

00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:18.000
[speaker 2] Thank you [applause]

00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:29.000
[speaker 1] And let's thank our interpreters who've worked awfully hard today. [applause]

00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:40.000
Okay, I'd just like to say that the program, the final program of the day which will start here as soon as we can throw everybody off the benches and move the benches into a circle,

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:46.000
um, will be an introductory sign language class right here. We'll end at around 5:30.

00:31:46.000 --> 00:31:55.000
In our other tent we're demonstrating the T.T.Y., which deaf people can use to communicate over the telephone and other devices.

00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:07.010
I'd also in our other tent for our deaf visitors, we're collecting sign language stories on videotape for the Gallaudet college and Smithsonian archives.

00:36:37.000 --> 00:47:51.264
[SILENCE]