It is estimated by the Hearing Association that there are 200,000 New Zealanders who have a hearing loss. They are not deaf — which means not hearing at all — but their hearing is impaired.
What of the deaf — the people who can hear nothing, or, to be more accurate, who can hear so little that their hearing loss (85 decibels plus) is classified as profound?
Their organisation, the New Zealand Association of the Deaf, reckons that there are about 6000 of them. The association was formed in 1978 by delegates from the eight main regional deaf clubs and its services and programmes are for the benefit of all the deaf, not only club members.
In the past 18 months, among its other achievements, the NZAD has opened field offices in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington, and hopes soon to establish two more in Nelson and Dunedin.
The most significant element in this service is that the field officers are deaf themselves – not hard of hearing, not hearing children or deaf parents, or social workers who have specialised in the deaf – but deaf people. Profoundly deaf.
There is no provision for training in social work with the deaf in this country, nor for deaf people to take the normal social work courses. This means that the deaf field officers are unqualified – or, to put it another way, it means that their disability is their qualification. And that in itself is an innovation amounting to a quiet revolution.
The deaf themselves, at open meetings held before each field officer was appointed, decided they wanted the positions filled by deaf people.
To understand this, we have to look at the nature of the disability. Why, you may ask, can’t the deaf – able-bodied, active people – go along to Social Welfare or the Labour Department or wherever, and get the help available to other members of the public? Why do they need field offices at all? They can speak English, can’t they?
Maybe yes, and maybe no – it depends on what you mean by speaking, and what you mean by English. For many of the profoundly deaf, lack of hearing means inability to reproduce normal speech patterns and monitor one’s own voice. In children, it can mean lack of language and consequent educational retardation.
So, on the one hand, there are deaf people, particularly those deaf from birth or infancy, with poor speech and shaky and limited grasp of written language.
And on the other hand, hearing people often react unhappily when they are forced to deal with someone who did not understand or be understood in the normal medium of speech. They may be shocked — because deafness, the invisible handicap, can often be a “unfair” surprise. They will probably be embarrassed, and embarrassment often manifests itself as irritation or impatience. Not always, but often.
And so, for many of the deaf, any encounter with officialdom in a public service is something they would rather avoid.
These people may brave their difficulties when they have to, and when the situation is not too complicated for a straightforward basic English written question and answer. But like anyone else, they would prefer to talk freely, and often they have a deep need to go beyond the plain facts, to have their situation understood in depth. They have decided that only deaf field officers can meet these needs.
Of course, the field officers have to be more than simply deaf. They are mature, intelligent and responsible people with an interest in and a concern for the welfare of deaf people in general.
And they have to be capable of communicating not only with the deaf but also with the hearing world. Their job is defined as first understanding what help is needed, then liaising with the appropriate agency or department or person to meet the need.
And in many cases, that means contacting a hearing person, and there’s the rub.
Many people who were interested in the inception of the field officers were convinced it would never do to appoint deaf people, precisely because of the necessity for communication with the hearing agencies. They were, with the best of intentions, more concerned for the convenience of the hearing than for the needs and satisfaction of the deaf.
In the event, the deaf field officers are proving their worth in action: they are being accepted as professional and conscientious fellow professionals.
The field officers have their difficult moments when they encounter those too uptight and selfconscious to be sympathetic to a disabled person, even one labelled “field officer” and even in the International Year of Disabled Persons.
But even these encounters have their good points, not least the fact that each one rams home the point that deafness is a communication barrier, and that a communication barrier is not a trifle or a laughing matter but a very serious disability.
This is a point that cannot be made with the same impact by a hearing person speaking for the deaf. It has to be demonstrated to be believed.
The field offices and other developments — the spread of total communication, increased efforts toward communication and the growth of deaf sports — are all part of the new, more positive and independent attitude which is salvaging the deaf as well as other disabled groups.
Picture caption: Pat Dugdale, who wrote this article, with a deaf client, Mrs Anne Parker; Association of the Deaf field officers David Chilwell (Christchurch) and Pat Dugdale (Wellington) with field office co-ordinator Don Manning.
There are Association of the Deaf field offices in these cities: AUCKLAND: John Hunt, 2nd floor, Grand Building, Princes Street; telephone: 799-331. WELLINGTON: Mrs Pat Dugdale, room 832, DIC building, Lambton Quay (P.O. Box 1079); Telephone 736-291. CHRISTCHURCH: David Chilwell, room 5, 693A Colombo Street (P.O. Box 1079); Telephone 795-820.
