Bridging the Gap Between the Hearing & Deaf Worlds
Check out the posts below where you can listen or read the transcripts of The Hear Me Out! [CC] Podcast.
Even though it’s not visible (like many things related to deaf awareness), audism is a major within society and it remains a major issue for anyone who is experiencing some kind of deafness. Yet it’s rarely ever talked about compared other discriminations and prejudices.
So what is audism and what should be aware?
I have recently watched ‘CODA’ (which stands for ‘child/children of deaf adult), the latest movie only on Apple TV+, around a CODA who is struggling with the dilemma of helping her deaf family’s struggling fishing business whilst pursuiing her love of singing.
But with the moral obligations of helping her family, plus the pressure that comes with being a CODA, this movie follows the story of this journey and how complex it is for those in the real world too.
Unless there are hearing aids or cochlear implants in your line of vision, or perhaps sign language are the main form of communication, it’s safe to say it’s not immediately obvious if a person is deaf or not. But is that good or bad?
Learn about my thoughts on deafness being an invisible disability
For some people, the concept of asking whether being deaf is a disability is weird question to ask or it’s complicated. For others, it’s very straightforward.
It will really depends on how you want to look at it. But in this episode, I talk about it from MY own perspectives rather than treat it as a one answer that suits everyone.
When it comes to the general perception of people with disability, it is normally looked with a negative context i.e. their “medical condition” is causing the barriers. However, a better approach would be to look at the barriers as the cause of society rather than because of the person.
But that can only happen if we adjust our mindset towards disability.
Learn about the differences between social and medical of disability here
Sometimes, it’s good to make light-hearted, funny (and at the same time, terrible) jokes about wearing hearing aids.
The ‘curb-cut effect’ is a phenomenon that is not talked about enough, even though it has been around for decades.
But what is curb-cut effect? And how does it affect (in a positive way) almost every single person in society? Hopefully, if more people understand it, it will allow all of us to open our minds about certain features that we see in society today that, although are not primarily for us, we ended up benefiting from it too.
It’s very common to see people say “just read the subtitles/captions” when there are calls for sign language interpreters.
But is it really that simple? Spoiler alert: no. But it’s not complicated to understand it either.
Click here to learn when are subtitles/captions are not enough
If there is one thing that many newspaper do, is to grab attention at whatever the cost. Unfortunately, the ‘lip reading experts’ headline tends to attract a lot of attention. But at the same time, it damages the perception of what lip reading is.
Learn more about the problem with “lipreading expert headlines” here
