Big City Accessibility

Hi everyone,

I recently returned to Toronto after spending a week in the small town where I am from. For that one week while I was there I was oral only. I normally live “voice off” but when I am in my home town that is pretty much impossible given the mentality there and people expecting me to speak.

Today was my second day back in Toronto and I was so pleased to spend all day “voice off”. I have come to value how accessible Toronto is to me and the rest of the Deaf community in general. Sure, there are many improvements to be made, but as a whole it is decently accessible.

When I go out for lunch, no one gets freaked out if I gesture and point to the menu items to order. The waiters are willing to write notes, sometimes even initiating it themselves. Then there are all the people that know a little ASL, and regardless of how minimal their ASL knowledge is I really appreciate the effort.

Today I ordered my tea in ASL at Starbucks. The person working was fluent in ASL and it was great to see that. Then I went to Indigo and at the cash the woman know some basic ASL. Enough to communicate with me in a basic sense.

Today just made me very happy and I wanted to share.

Jenny

University problems

Hi everyone,

Educational access is a struggle that I think any Deaf student in the mainstream will face. It was a huge fight for me in school, but when I started University I naively thought that everything would be okay.

One month ago I had a meeting with someone at my University. She oversees the Accessibility Services office, and I met with her to discuss the many access concerns I have faced. Those concerns included interpreters, professors, lack of awareness, and the incredibly limited number of TTY’s on campus. After our meeting she promised to follow up with me within the week.

A week came and went, and then two weeks - so I emailed her and told her what steps I had taken since the meeting. Another week went by without a response so I emailed her again let her know what steps I had taken in that week and to encourage her to fill me in on what she had done. Another week passed and today I sent her a forward email expressing my concern. I would like to share it! I am nervous that I may have been a little too forward. Let me know what you think!


Dear Ms. ______,

I am very disappointed that you have not followed up with me yet. I strongly value commitment. I do not take commitments lightly and I have strong respect for those who honour their commitments. In our meeting on January 23rd, you said that you would follow-up with me within the week and to see that this has not yet happened a month later is incredibly disappointing to me.

I have been putting an enormous amount of my time and energy into making sure that the environment at the University of Toronto is made as equitable and accessible for its Deaf students. I feel that it is unfortunate that the University places little value on our culture, our language, our rights, and our education.

I want to be at the University of Toronto and I plan to stay here for the remainder of my undergraduate degree, and possibly to pursue graduate work. I have the same right to be here as any other student and the way I have been treated by people in this institution is disgusting. I haven?t been in a more audist environment in a very long time - if ever.

I want to work with the University to see change. I am not interested in escalating any of this, but with the blatant disrespect and lack of commitment I have seen to this point I am starting to feel that may be my only option.

I am willing to educate, advocate, provide feedback, ideas, and support establishing change anyway I can. I genuinely want to see the University work with me on this and I do not want to feel like I am constantly fighting for recognition of the unique issues I face as a Deaf student.
_________has been an amazing support for me this past year. She is one of the few people in the University who has shown genuine concern for the inequities that myself and other Deaf students are facing. I am so appreciative that I have this support and that _____ is willing to learn from me and work with me to make sure the University is accessible to me as possible.

Even with ____ doing all she can, it is not enough. There are policies and procedures that Accessibility Services are to follow that are simply not up-to-date. There are fundamental issues that go beyond Accessibility Services and beyond _____'s control. For those, I need your help. If this is not something you are interested in helping me with please let me know and direct me to someone who you feel would be better suited to helping me address these issues.

Sincerely,

Jenny

So, I want feedback! What do you think???

Jenny

Social Effects of Hearing Loss

Hey everyone,

Today I want to talk about the social effects of hearing loss. This is a topic I have seen pop up on message boards a lot recently and it also comes up a lot from medical professionals when they are trying to convince me about the cochlear implant thing.

When I think of my social experience in context of being Deaf, there are 3 common scenes that come to mind.

Scene number 1:

I walk into the large lecture hall about 15 minutes before the start of my class. It is relatively empty which gives me the chance to get the best seat possible to allow me to access as much of the visual information as I can. As the class fills up, the seats around me remain empty. Soon I glance around to notice the room is almost filled to capacity, yet I still have a bubble of space around me. No one ever approaches me, looks at me, or tries to communicate with me in anyway. As far as they are concerned I am contagious. They isolate me.

Scene number 2:

I walk into the large lecture hall about 15 minutes before the start of my class. It is relatively empty which gives me the chance to get the best seat possible to allow me to access as much of the visual information as I can. As the class fills up, someone sits in the seat next to me. She pulls out a blank piece of paper and writes “Hi, how are you today? Are you worried about the quiz next week?”. From there we start a written conversation about our class, our quiz, our professor, and before we know it the lecture is starting and our conversation must end. During the brief breaks we take the opportunity to chat some more, just like the rest of the students.

Scene number 3:

I walk into the large lecture hall about 15 minutes before the start of my class. It is relatively empty which gives me the chance to get the best seat possible to allow me to access as much of the visual information as I can. As the class fills up, someone sits in the seat next to me. We strike up a conversation, recapping the weekend that had just concluded. Our hands are moving extra fast as we try to use every valuable second of social time we have. As the class starts we find ourselves still drawn into our conversation. Slowly we relinquish the hope of continuing for an hour and pay attention to the class. Every time there is as much as a brief pause, we catch the opportunity to chat.

For me, these three scenarios come up often. My preference is number 3. The third scene is played out when I am around people who use my language to communicate. For me the social effects of hearing loss are the same as the social effects of being dropped into a new country where you can’t speak the language. When I am surrounded by people who don’t know ASL, I do my best to communicate and often they do the same, but I am - and always will be - most comfortable around Deaf people and using ASL. To me, saying that I am “suffering the social effects of hearing loss” is the same as saying that someone is “suffering the social effects of being French”.

Jenny

Cochlear Implants

Hi everyone,

Cochlear implants - it’s a topic I have avoided like the plague. I will touch on it briefly and then run screaming in the opposite direction. The only person who has been subject to multiple serious conversations about CI’s with me is my audiologist and I am pretty sure that at this point, she groans at the very mention of the device when I am involved.

My audiologist and I have been through it all. Every pro and every con. We have had lengthy in person discussions on a near bi-monthly basis and the occasional email that could be published as a short novel. It has almost been one year since the discussion started and I honestly cannot say I am any closer to making a decision.

Right now I have my audiogram in front of me. It looks something like this…

Freq. R L
250Hz 105 100
500Hz 110 105
750Hz 115 105
1000Hz 120 115
1500Hz NR NR
2000Hz NR NR
4000Hz NR NR
6000Hz NR NR
8000Hz NR NR

SRT: DNT
Speech Discrimination: CNT

Basically I am Deaf, both audiologically and culturally.

With that audiogram you would think it would be an easy choice for me. I love music, I have a Hearing family, I’m young, and I have a ton of potential. At the same time, I understand music through vibrations and enjoy listening to it with my hearing aids, I don’t spend a lot of time with my family and they live several hours away, I’m young, and I have a ton of potential.

Recently, in an email to my audiologist, I laid everything out on the table. I said exactly how I felt about everything in that exact moment. I would like to quote some of that now…

“I realized how much I have changed as a person in the last year. I am not sure I can pin point how I have changed exactly but my personality, my views, and my opinions have all evolved a considerable amount. I know part of it has to do with me living on my own in a new city, part of it has to do with growing up and maturing, and part of it definitely has to do with my hearing loss. I feel like the idea of getting a CI is more connected to who I used to be than who I am now. I do not feel like I fit best with Hearing culture anymore, I definitely feel like I fit better with Deaf culture.”

“I believe strongly that things happen for a reason. I have been through a lot in my life and I have had many profound experiences that have influenced me in ways I don't even know yet. I have already seen how my hearing loss has affected others in positive ways and ways in which I have been able to use it in positive ways. When I go to work and I see my kids that have a hearing loss and the way they react to be because I am the same as them…it's really interesting. I can't explain how it is impacting this decision for me but it is.”

“I'm not torn between hearing more and hearing what I can now. Honestly, I am quite comfortable with what I can hear now. I am torn because it is choosing between cultures and languages. It goes beyond all of the audiological stuff and becomes an argument of which world I feel best suits me. In the end though, if I were to get a CI, I wouldn't really fit in either world. I wouldn't be Hearing and I wouldn't be Deaf. I remember being in that spot before. I can remember the concentration it took for me to be in school and how much I missed. I don't want that again.”

Even with all of that I found myself pulling out my Cochlear and my Advanced Bionics information packages and flipping through them for the millionth time in the last year. I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to hear a little bit more but at the same time I am terrified to find out.

Every time I meet a new audiologist and the discussion about cochlear implants comes up I get apprehensive and set up a barrier. Often the audiologist is completely disrespectful of my Deaf culture and ASL which is also a massive turn off for me. Right now, I have an amazing audiologist who respects every choice I have made so far. I am confident that if she truly believed I was making the wrong choice, she would fight me on it but up to now she has been 100% supportive.

In the fall we met with a cochlear implant audiologist together. I would never have done it if my audiologist wasn’t there with me. I left that meeting completely turned off the idea and was adamantly against it for a month or two before returning to it once again. This is the trend for me. I get curious and look into it again and then run in the opposite direction. I don’t know if I am running out of fear or of genuine disinterest and until I can figure that out, I can’t make a decision.

That’s all for tonight!

Jenny