Growing Up Deaf

What was it like to grow up deaf at a time when deafness was not well understood? How frustrating was it at a time when we did not have the technology that we have today? Aspects of my growing up deaf experience are still true for some deaf children today. Here is my growing up deaf story, from childhood through college.

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 HS
How social and educational frustrations, and depression drove me to leave high school after the eleventh grade.

Deaf College

Growing Up Deaf - The College Years
My deaf college years at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, New York and Gallaudet University (College) in Washington, DC.