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Transcription: Transcription: [00:02:35]
[00:02:35]
[00:02:31]
{SPEAKER name="William Ennis"}
Bill Ennis from Greenbelt, Maryland. You see green belt--
[00:02:38]
oh. Ha, I wore the wrong belt today. Oh. There. This is my neighbor too.
[00:02:45]
I work right over there, USDA Department of Agriculture-- Are you following me okay?
[00:02:53]
Um, oh, uh-- My parents are hearing like all of you. I have two brothers.
[00:03:04]
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.

[00:03:14]
[[Moderator]]
And your kids?
[00:03:17]

{SPEAKER name="William Ennis"}
Oh [[laughing]], I forgot to tell you about myself.
[00:03:20]
Yeah, I have a wife. 14 years this summer,
[00:03:28]
I have wonderful kids. 12 year old boy. He's hearing. He's-- probably someday will become deaf. Progressive loss.
[00:03:39]

{SILENCE}

[00:03:44]
{SPEAKER name="William Ennis"}
She reads me so slow. [[background laughter]] I have a daughter, Bonnie Joe. She's 9. Hearing.

[00:03:55]
[[Moderator]]
Thank you. Steffie?


[00:03:59]
{SPEAKER NAME="Stephanie Aiello"}}
My name is Stephanie Aiello. I still go to school in Beltsv--Belts Junior High.
[00:04:08]
[[Interpreter speaking for self]] Really? [[Stephanie answering through interpreter]] Yes, really. And I have two parents who are deaf and one hearing sister.

[00:04:18]
[[Moderator]]
Thank you.

[00:04:19]

{SPEAKER name="Debbie Sonnenstrahl"}
Hi, my name is Debbie Sonnenstrahl. It's a long name.
[00:04:28]
And I live right near here, and I work for Gallaudet College.
[00:04:36]
Actually, I teach Art History, but I'm on a special project working with museums, helping them to develop programs for the deaf.
[00:04:45]
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.
[00:04:58]
And all of them are hearing. And here is a twist: I have two deaf kids myself.

[00:05:07]
[[Moderator]]
Thank you. Barbara.

[00:05:10]

{SPEAKER name="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.
[00:05:30]
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.
[00:05:44]
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.

[00:05:59]
[[Moderator]]Thank you very much
[[Applause]]

[00:06:06]
[[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:

[00:06:17]
How do you communicate in the family, with one another? If you're all deaf possibly that's easier to understand.

[00:06:24]
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?