They’re shut out-lonely and deaf
In a quiet suburban street late at night a noisy party is in progress. Doors slam, people come and go and pop music blares.
The neighbours are muttering. But the three male teenagers who live in the house are having a marvellous time, with no one to disturb them.
Their parents are upstairs, sleeping peacefully. The total racket doesn’t worry them. They are both totally deaf.
This was one situation in which Auckland’s newly-appointed deaf welfare officer, the Rev. T. G. Fear, was called in. A quick visit from him and the party came to a reluctant end.
But he wasn’t too hard on the boys.
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This illustrates the lighter side of problems encountered daily by the people who are totally deaf. But there are many other people in the city and suburbs of Auckland whose world of silence is a tragic one.
These people are what used to be called the “deaf and dumb.”
“Dumb” can be a “dirty word” suggesting stupidity or mental inadequacy.
And often the deaf are lumped in with the mentally handicapped. They can’t speak, find it difficult to communicate, and consequently their intake of knowledge can be limited.
Potential for success
Mr Fear cites a recent case of a 16-year-old boy in a “sheltered workshop” situation.
“This boy was lost and lonely,” he said. “He was mixing with mongols and other physically and mentally retarded people. He was turning out good work, but no one tried to push him. He was left with the feeling, ‘Is this all they think of me?’”
When Mr Fear arranged a vocational test for the boy, the assessors were overjoyed.
The lad though to be “an absolute dummy” was found to have an enormous potential for success in industry.
The ones who do get a chance and prove themselves able to handle a job well often find themselves stuck in the same job, year in year out, while others are promoted above them.
Possibly there are other deaf people who could do as well. But in most cases, employers can’t be bothered to give them a chance.
What may seem to the employer like an obvious place to put a deaf person – in the noisiest place of the factory – is in fact not suitable.
A victim of nervous deafness, though he cannot hear, is irritated and uncomfortable in a very noisy environment.
Deaf people, Mr Fear says, will never be totally integrated with the hearing community. For one thing, they are suspicious of it. When a deaf person enters a crowded room and sees people watching him and talking to one another, he doesn’t know what is being said. Perhaps everyone is talking about him. They know he’s deaf.
This is why deaf people love being together – especially the elderly. They all understand and trust each other.
Misunderstandings between the deaf and those with hearing can arise unexpectedly.
What Mr Fear describes as a classic case occurred in Auckland recently when a deaf Australian man arrived here on the final stage of a world trip.
The man, who had worked as a bootmaker and saved all his money, was determined to see all the places he should, though he could not speak and his writing was illegible.
Accommodation was found for him at a prominent Auckland hotel, and he then indicated he wanted to go to Rotorua. Mr Fear arranged a day trip for free.
All set for his scenic day trip, the man got hold of a hotel porter, showed him his air ticket to Rotorua, and managed to convey that he wanted a taxi.
Bewildering help
The porter got a taxi and returned to the man’s room.
He rushed in and began flinging things into suitcases, helping the man close them and making sure he had left nothing behind.
This poor fellow was left sitting in the taxi, utterly confused,” Mr Fear said. “He told me he couldn’t understand why. He didn’t know whether if it was usual to take all one’s luggage on a day trip to Rotorua, or whether he had committed some unpardonable offence and had been evicted.”
“Of course, the porter had been trying to be helpful, under the impression he was leaving permanently.”
Problems also arise with deaf drivers. If for some reason a traffic officer decides to stop them and pursues with siten wailing, they of course, ignore it.
This type of thing can take a long time to sort out at the police station.
Public sympathy goes out immediately and warmly to a person seen struggling along with a white stick, but a deaf person, who is probably even more isolated, finds the going hard.
Greater handicap
Miss Helen Keller, who conquered the handicaps of both deafness and blindness said: “Of the two, I would have to say that the loss of hearing is the greater handicap because life is social and man is gregarious.”
In Auckland, people have been found living in isolation, afraid to go out and incapable of even doing their own shopping.
An elderly deaf pensioner receiving a benefit of $47 a month was paying $40 a month in rent and had been living on the remaining $7.
“She had been doing this for years – living on water crackers for the last week of each month – simply because she didn’t know who to go for help,” Mr Fear said.
Deaf people who have been looked after all their lives by relatives can be left at the age of 55 or 60, unable to even cope with travelling on a bus and refusing to mix with anyone.
The world of silence – no translators, no television, no phone, no music, no doorbell. How does a man wake to get to work at 6 a.m. when it’s a dark winter morning and he can’t hear an alarm clock?
Hereditary factor
Many deaf people marry deaf people and no one ever knows whether the children will have the same disability.
The husband and wife who slept while the party was in progress were both deaf, yet each of their three children could hear.
In another case, a woman who went deaf as the result of an illness after she learnt how to speak, married a man with perfect hearing. Yet of their four children, three were totally deaf.
Because heredity of deafness is unpredictable and because German measles, or rubella, in pregnant women still regularly causes deafness in babies, facilities for the born deaf are a necessity.
The problems of people who go deaf in later life are not so acute, but on the other hand are quite widespread. The League for the Hard of Hearing complains it cannot get enough lip-reading tutors to train these people.
Community resources for the deaf will be publicized in “Deaf Week,” beginning on Monday. A display at the Building Centre including facilities for the public hearing tests, will be a feature of the week, which is sponsored by the Friends of the Deaf, the Auckland Deaf Society and the League for the Hard of Hearing.
- Deaf Clubs
- TV/Media
