Born Deaf
Growing Up Deaf - Rubella
Rubella is the syndrome that caused my deafness.
Deaf Childhood
Education
Growing Up Deaf - Classroom Ghost
Being in the classroom without an interpreter was a major, daily struggle.
Growing Up Deaf - Mainstreamed and Left Out
The emotional and social pain of being mainstreamed and having no friends.
Growing Up Deaf - Role Model
The first deaf adult influence in my life, whom I met around nine years old.
Growing Up Deaf - Rude Awakening
Realizing, painfully, at age seven, what it meant to be deaf.
Family Life
Growing Up Deaf - Family Holidays
The loneliness and frustration of family holidays when you are a deaf child unable to communicate with cousins and adult relatives.
Growing Up Deaf - Movies
How we "went" to the movies in an era before closed captioning.
Growing Up Deaf - TV Before Closed Captions
Missing out on classic programs of the seventies because there were no closed captions then.
Hearing Aids and Speech
Growing Up Deaf - Body Aids
I do not have fond memories of my body hearing aids because of their bulkiness and the discomfort.
Growing Up Deaf - Ear Molds
The experience of getting new ear molds made is one that will stay with me forever.
Growing Up Deaf - Speech Therapy
Memories of speech therapy, which was not my favorite activity.
Summer Camp
Growing Up Deaf - Blind Children
Exposure to blind children in a summer day camp program helped me to understand why hearing children unfamiliar with deafness reacted the way they did to me.
Growing Up Deaf - Summer Camp
Experience at a signing deaf cam when I was one of the only oral deaf kids there.
Early Teens
School
Growing Up Deaf - Amy Rowley and Me
The historic Supreme Court case about having interpreting services.
Growing Up Deaf - Hearing School or Deaf School?
It was a small but important event in my life. Before I started high school, I had to choose between staying in public school or going to a deaf school.
Sign Language
Growing Up Deaf - Discovering Sign
After growing up oral into my teens, I discovered sign language in my early teens.
Social Life
Growing Up Deaf - HiYa
The benefits of belonging to a social organization for deaf teenagers.
Teasing (or Bullying)
Growing Up Deaf - Teasing
What it was like to be teased for being deaf, particularly during the emotionally vulnerable early teens.
Late Teens
Growing Up Deaf - Leaving HSHow social and educational frustrations, and depression drove me to leave high school after the eleventh grade.
Deaf College
Growing Up Deaf - The College YearsMy deaf college years at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, New York and Gallaudet University (College) in Washington, DC.

