Deaf Like Me

Tom and Louise are relieved that their daughter appears healthy and without any disabilities. Lynn seems to be progressing as expected until a few months later, at a parade for the Fourth of July, where she appears not to notice loud sirens blaring. She also sleeps through the fireworks display later that night. Tom worries that there might be something wrong with her after all. Louise and Tom try to test their daughter’s hearing at home, but their findings leave them uncertain. Tom suspects that Lynn might be deaf. He recalls seeing people speak in sign language at a church service when he was young, but otherwise he knows nothing about d/Deaf people. Tom and Louise decide they should not jump to conclusions. A while later, Lynn laughs out loud for the first time; they decide that she must be able to hear if she can laugh.

For a while, Tom and Louise continue to hope that Lynn can hear them. At Lynn’s nine-month checkup, Louise raises some of their concerns with their family doctor. The doctor examines Lynn’s ears but concludes that there is nothing wrong with them and that it is too early to conduct conclusive tests about her hearing. He advises Louise to test Lynn’s hearing while she is asleep. Tom and Louise do so with varying results. Their son Bruce was also a sound sleeper as a baby and frequently slept through loud noises, so they are unsure if Lynn’s behavior indicates deafness. 

Finally, after many at-home tests of Lynn’s hearing, Tom and Louise become certain that Lynn cannot hear. They do not know what to do. They observe that Lynn is babbling less and less, at a developmental stage when their son Bruce began to babble more. Lynn begins to mouth words but does not produce sound. She does, however, mimic facial expressions, mouth movements, and hand gestures. Their family doctor does not take Louise’s concerns about Lynn’s hearing seriously and continues to tell her that Lynn is too young for a proper hearing test. An ear, nose, and throat specialist tells them to see an audiologist, as Lynn’s deafness might be caused by nerve damage. Tom and Louise cannot get an appointment for three months. Louise is frustrated, but her mother gets them an appointment at the John Tracy Clinic in California, which specializes in deaf children. The Spradleys drive to California.

Tom and Louise take Lynn to the John Tracy Clinic. They speak with Dr. Murphy, who assesses Lynn’s mental and physical development and concludes that, while Lynn does have hearing loss, she “is a very normal little girl” who will “be able to learn as well as any child” with special training (37). Tom feels like he and Louise are finally going to get answers from professionals who know what they are doing. The John Tracy Clinic offers them a correspondence course about raising deaf children. The clinic emphasizes the importance of teaching deaf children to lip read so that they can eventually learn to talk. 

An audiologist tests Lynn’s hearing. She tells Tom and Louise that Lynn does have a small amount of residual hearing that, with training, can be built upon. Tom takes this to mean that Lynn is not completely deaf and has hope that she will somehow learn to hear. The audiologist encourages Tom and Louise to get Lynn a hearing aid. They should treat Lynn like a hearing child, and they should talk to her as much as possible. They should not rely on gestures to communicate with her. If Lynn comes to rely on gestures, she “will not want to learn to use her voice” (46). Tom and Louise leave the appointment feeling optimistic that Lynn can grow up to be a “normal” child like Bruce.

Tom and Louise are bolstered by the idea that Lynn is not entirely deaf and that they might be able to teach her to hear over time. Tom reads more about lip reading. The literature warns against using gestures or fingerspelling to communicate with deaf children. Tom thinks about all the gestures that they all use to communicate. Often, Lynn understands a command or concept when it is accompanied by a gesture, and Tom is unsure if Lynn has read his lips or recognized the gesture. He considers the communicative power of these gestures and thinks about what would happen if he and Louise made the effort to teach Lynn “a useful vocabulary of gestures” or else “learn the special sign language that deaf people use among themselves” (52). He and Louise reject this possibility. They want Lynn to learn to speak because they want her to be “normal.” 

Resolved not to gesture anymore, Tom and Louise talk to Lynn at every opportunity, making sure that she can always see their mouths when they talk. It is exhausting. At another appointment, an audiologist measures Lynn’s hearing again and tells Tom and Louise that Lynn should be tested again when she is two, after which she can receive a prescription for a hearing aid. In the meantime, she recommends that they borrow an auditory trainer from the Chicago Hearing Society. Tom and Louise are frustrated to learn that they cannot get an auditory trainer for Lynn for another two months, but they continue to talk to her as much as they can. The practice of excluding gestures and teaching deaf children to lip read and speak is called “oralism.”