Recently in Mr. Sandman’s blog suggested that I’ve become “a champion of the decidedly tiny minority of oralist/oralist-leaning blogosphere” and I want to take a short time to discuss this and clarify a few things for him and many others.Whether I’m a “champion” or not is beside the point in what I believe in or advocate as a person with hearing loss who wears a hearing aid which have benefitted me enormously in my life as a Ragtime pianist, my career, and my life. I do support those who choose to use their voice to speak as their primary means of communicating, even if it means not knowing how or the need to sign. Though not just for those “oralists” who cannot hear well or at all I support but those who do hear well with their hearing aids or even cochlear implants nowadays. Talking has always been an effective means of communicating among my hearing or hard of hearing peers.
There’s a second term called “aural” that is often overlooked by the Deaf community of which the deaf and hard of hearing community is intimately aware of. Though some people often take the word “oral” to mean “aural” as well but not every oralist is an “auralist” or an "oral-auralist" (if that is even a word) . The word “aural” relates to the ear on the ability to hear, discriminate and understand words and sound while "oral" relates to the ability to speak and proper enunciation of words. For me, I've used mostly aural approaches to get where I am today only because of my ability to discriminate speech is high with thanks to early use of my hearing aid at around age 3. My speech discrimination score for spoken words stands at around 94% when a word is spoken alone but it goes up to 97 or 98% when spoken in the form of a sentence. Hence, my ability to use the telephone or cell phone with ease. So, in the case of being a "champion" I see myself rather as a huge supporter of those who can benefit immensely from the use of their hearing aids or cochlear implants knowing that many do cherish the world of sound. So, in retrospect, I'm more of the oral-aural supporter than oral. Still there is nothing wrong with speaking just like this deaf, motivational speaker, Stephen Hopson who is an oralist.
Browneyedgirl65 made a comment in her blog on not caring about the ability to hear birds chirping or hear a Mozart symphony which is fine. However, there are those who do cherish sounds much more than Browneyedgirl65 and that they are thankful with technology (i.e. hearing aids, cochlear implants) giving them the ability and the miracle to hear beautiful sounds or the ability to understand the spoken words. Even I am grateful and blessed with what I have. Not even Deaf politics can take that one away from me. Being able to hear and understand words and sound are important to a lot of people with various levels of hearing loss. For others, it is not. I guess you have to hear the nuances of sound in order to understand where I'm coming from and really understand and appreciate the value and quality of sound to be enjoyed as a gift to those who can hear.
But here’s another myth. The so-called small blogosphere of oralists, which I will include "auralists" who are also "oralist," isn’t so decidedly small but rather a large group, much larger than you think. Rather, it’s decidedly larger than the Deaf community. Look around and you can see why but this is so only if you look carefully enough. Why we don’t hear from these hard of hearing bloggers? It’s because many don’t delve into the world of Deaf politics, ASL and bickering dominating their Deaf blogspace. For the most part they're not interested in Deaf culture or ASL. They have other interests not always deaf-related for the most part. You have to know where to look in Google and it isn't always patently obvious on where to look like you could with a Deaf community of bloggers.
Of course, you won't see them in YouTube videos mimicking a barking seal like a bad oralist ability to speak like one Deaf vlogger did as a sign of intellect even though he's going for his graduate degree right now. Yet this video has now been conveniently taken down. But then you have a Deaf person who mimic badly on the way some oralists may supposedly speak with exaggerated lip movements. Stephen Hopson he isn't - a recognized motivational speaker and oralist who is deaf. But if you think those videos were funny then I suppose this video is funny, too, on how people sign? Or if you really want something that's funny and a knee-slapper visit comedians making fun of sign language at the Laugh Factory with a "sign language interpreter" doing his job. Keith Wann he isn't. I guess the old mantra is that if you can't take a joke, take hike applies here, too?
Just as there is a “World Federation of the Deaf” there is an “International Federation of Hard of Hearing” organization that began in 1977 based out of Germany. And a few weeks ago they held their 7th IFHOH Congress in Vancouver, Canada. You can look and see the papers that were presented as well which is an interesting list of topics covered. Organization members of IFHOH in the United States are NTID, ALDA (The Association of Late Deafened Adults), HOHA (Hard of Hearing Advocates), SHHH (Hearing Loss Association of America), ATA (American Tinnitus Association), and AGB (Alexander Graham Bell). You can see a list of those members in other countries as well. It's quite a comprehensive list.
With 31 million people with hearing loss in the United States the decidedly much smaller community would be in fact the Deaf community consisting of some 900,000 Deaf people. So, if I'm going to be a champion of something it'd be for a much bigger picture than a narrow one.
