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Transcription: [00:06:35]
Speaker 1 :
Who wants to begin?

[00:06:37]
{SILENCE}
[00:06:42]
Speaker 3: I know my case is much different from theirs. I was born deaf.
[00:06:48]


So it was a shock to my father, who was a baby doctor, a pediatrician.
[00:07:00]
He had been brainwashed by the John Tracy Clinic in California, who is a great advocate of the Oralist system.
[00:07:07]
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.
[00:07:21]
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.
[00:07:47]
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.
[00:08:04]
If I didn't understand again, they would just use different words with the same meaning, so I could try to get the picture.
[00:08:12]
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
[00:08:25]
everyday for 24 hours a day, you become very used to their lips, their lip movements. So communication was pretty easy in my house.
[00:08:35]
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?"