Mark Drolsbaugh's Autobiography, Deaf Again

Deaf Again autobiography is a man’s recounting of his life growing up in deaf culture, but virtually living in the hearing world. Mark Drolsbaugh was born to deaf parents, but grew up partially hearing. When he was diagnosed with hearing loss, his grandparents responded by not allowing Mark to learn ASL. Doctors and speech therapists concluded that Mark should not be immersed in deaf culture, instead he should hang on to his hearing as much as he can. He was given hearing aids and translators did not sign to him, but just repeated everything clearer. His parents were actually instructed to not used ASL around Mark because that would promote deaf culture. He became very reliant on lip reading and had no significant connection to the deaf community, even though his parents were both deaf! When he wasn’t familiar with the lip patterns of an individual, he found it very hard to understand them. Because of this, he was unable to keep up in school and had to rely on teaching himself all of his classwork. Eventually, he was accepted into Germantown Friends School, which was very rigorous, but people

He gained a lot of confidence and made many deaf friends. He even got involved in baseball (his favorite sport from youth) and joined a fraternity! It was there that he met his future wife, Melanie. Mark graduated with his B.A. in Psychology and went on to obtain a M.A. at the School of Counseling and Guidance. Eventually, Mark ended up back at PSD, working in the counseling department. In total, the novel is titled Deaf Again because there is a distinguished line between Mark being deaf and learning how to become part of the deaf community. While he grew up hard of hearing, he was not truly deaf because people influenced him to act like a hearing person. It was not until Mark became actively involved in the deaf community as an adult that he became “deaf again” and that journey is the subject of this