Book Review Of Deaf Like Me

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Deaf like Me is book written by Thomas and Louise Spradley. It tells the story of Lynn, Thomas’ daughter and the family’s hardships as they learned to deal with the harsh reality that Lynn was profoundly deaf. Thomas and Louise’s son Bruce had contracted German Measles as a child and later it was found that Louise had also contracted measles early on in her pregnancy. The parents learned of the dangerous risks German measles posed to the baby during pregnancy and all the complications it could cause, but when Lynn was born she passed all the hearing tests at the hospital and was deemed a perfectly normal baby. Although their worries had somewhat subsided, as Lynn grew up it became increasingly apparent that she did not respond to sounds and their suspicions grew that she …show more content…

It was painful to see how hard the parents worked to get Lynn to be normal like the rest of the family. They spent so much of their time focusing on getting her to talk and read lips that they overlooked one huge factor: that no matter how hard they tried, Lynn was deaf. It was so frustrating to see how much resistance they had towards using sign language. It was sad to see how disappointed the parents were when they learned of Lynn’s deafness even though it was easy to see they loved their child very much. I feel as though this book was a great look into how the world wants to fix, and repair people with disabilities and how strong and proud the deaf community is that they would rather consider themselves to be special and of their own culture than to be considered less abled than a hearing person. I like that the story started off with the parents frantically trying to fix Lynn, and ultimately led to their love, acceptance, and celebration of their daughter’s deafness. In the beginning of the book Thomas and Louise are told not to treat Lynn like she is deaf because then she will act

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