Deaf Again by Mark Drolsbaugh

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Recommended: reflection on deaf culture

The book, Deaf Again, written by Mark Drolsbaugh, is an autobiography telling his life story which starts with a young boy growing up who goes through the process of losing his hearing and then, as he gets older, he struggles with trying to fit in as a normal child. When Mark was very young, he could hear fairly well then gradually he went hard of hearing until he eventually went completely deaf. Even though he had two deaf parents, the doctors advised speech therapy and hearing aids because they did not understand Deaf Culture and they thought that Mark would be a lot happier if he could hang on to his hearing persona. Throughout the rest of the book, Mark goes through a lot of stages of trying to fit in with everyone and eventually does find himself and realizes that being Deaf is not a disease, but just a part of who he is.

About the time that Mark was in kindergarten, he thought he was a normal child just like everyone else, but he started to distort things he heard in class and was wondering why everyone would be laughing and why he would be getting corrected. One day in the first grade, Mark came to the realization that something was definitely not right with his hearing. During a Show ‘n' Tell activity, he was asked to come to the front of the room to show off one of his toys. After giving a description of the toy, someone raised their hand and had a question. This person was from the other class and was a couple rows back so there was absolutely no way that Mark could understand what he was saying. The only thing he heard come out of the boy's mouth was a garbled mess. Mark was so confused and could not answer the child that the teacher scolded him stating that this behavior was inappropriate. Mark did not k...

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... consider is whether or not to use ASL in the home. This issue is important because if you try to force the Deaf to hear they might not grow because they will have no form of communication to use with other people. Even though the doctors might say to not use ASL, this will greatly hinder your child's well being in the long run.

I learned a lot about Deaf people, ASL, and/or Deaf Culture after reading this book. Deaf people are normal just like anybody else and they should not be treated any differently. Some people treat Deafness as a disease that needs to be cured, but it's not. If a parent comes to learn that their child is deaf they react very crazily and act like their child is dying and that deafness is some fatal disease. Deaf people should be treated just like anyone else and no differently. They are not disabled and can do great things in this world.

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