A Loss for Words: The Story of Deafness in a Family

Ben was a bright, happy little boy. Yet he was easily distracted, he wouldn't make eye contact, and he couldn't comprehend the simplest things said to him. At age three he still hadn't started talking. Finally, Karen Foli knew she had to act, and she took her son to a speech and hearing clinic.

What the clinicians reported chilled her: Ben's speech and language were delayed by one to two years. Testing results and speech therapists suggested problems that included the words "probably retarded and perhaps autistic." But Karen, trusting her mother's intuition, knew that Ben was intelligent and that he was frustrated by his inability to communicate, so she continued to try to help her son. She discovered that he possessed the hallmarks of auditory processing disorder, the aural equivalent of dyslexia.

Like Sound Through Water is the story of Karen's struggle to get Ben the help he needed to learn the most basic skill of all: to communicate with the world. She ran the gauntlet of medical disbelievers and pediatric therapists who refused to understand the very new ?ndings of auditory processing disorder. Even her husband, a psychiatrist specializing in children's af?ictions, had never heard of APD. Despite this, he kept a steadfast faith in his son.

Now, after years of intensive treatment for APD, Ben is an academically successful, hardworking little boy with a bright future to look forward to. Like Sound Through Water is a testament to a mother's love and her devotion to her son's care; it is also an instructive journey for those who are discovering the world of APD and a guidebook to negotiating the land mines of its treatment. Above all, it is a beautifully written tale of hope and optimism.

The Fifth Volume in the Deaf Lives Series

Born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1974, Paul Jacobs lost his mother when he was three months old. When he was five, he lost most of his hearing. These two defining events formed the core of his being. He spent the first two decades of his life âcoming to terms with being neither Deaf nor hearing â a neither/nor, an in-between â and a person with a social identity that had yet to be invented.â His memoir, NeitherâNor: A Young Australian’s Experience with Deafness, recounts this journey.

Jacobs excelled in sports and the classroom, but he never lost awareness of how he was seen as different, often in cruel or patronizing ways. His father, a child psychologist, headed a long list of supportive people in his life, including his Uncle Brian, his itinerant teacher of the deaf Mrs. Carey, a gifted art teacher Mrs. Klein, who demanded and received from him first-rate work, a notetaker Rita, and Bella, his first girlfriend. Jacobs eventually attended university, where he graduated with honors. He also entered the Deaf world when he starred on the Deaf Australian World Cup cricket team. However, he never learned sign language, and frequently noted the lack of an adult role model for âneitherânorsâ such as himself.

Still emotionally adrift in 1998, Jacobs toured Europe, then volunteered to tutor deaf residents at Court Grange College in Devon, England. There, he discovered a darker reality for some deaf individuals â hearing loss complicated by schizophrenia, Bonnevie-Ullrich Syndrome, and other conditions. After returning to Australia, Jacobs recognized what he had gleaned from his long journey: âPower comes from within, not without. Sure, deafness makes one prone to be stigmatized. Yet having a disability can act as a stimulus for greater personal growth, richer experiences, and more genuine relationships.â

However, he can never seem to escape from a level of self pity. Though he ascribes this to his parent's deafness, often one wonders if his feelings are not rooted in his own deep classism. Much of what he describes as his youthful dificulties are not uncommon to find in the writtings of other children of working class immigrant jews. The embarassment he feels seems far more driven by this than his parents inability to hear.

I grew a bit tired of his deep self pity, perpetually describing himself as the victim of almost every circumstance.

In one poinient passage, he describes how his mother had once been courted by a wealthy english suitor whom she rejected. He wonders why she chose not marry this "catch." I myself wonder if davis would not have much prefered for this to be the case. It seems he would rather have been the child of the wealthy deaf than of the hearing poor.

While it is worth the read, other worthy texts by children of the deaf are far less self involved.

Young Davis was deeply loved by his parents, but hyper-responsible and desperate for contact and life in the outside world. Readers are given the terrific minutiae of his life as a child - the weekly dinner menu at home, the interior of his family's apartment, life at school, the kindesses of teachers and his parents' friends in the deaf community, (lower case "d," , then) the neighbors, and the sights, sounds, smells of family life, including what he describes as a nearly religious object (because of course his father couldn't hear baseball on the radio): an Emerson Console TV. A very personal iconography of Television -- he develops a superhero alterego he calls "The Zenth" -- is part of the immense charm and humor of Davis' story. (Years later, he finds the exact same Emerson Console in a junk shop in upstate New York, another great scene in this book.) In the chapter "Honeymoon with Mom," he goes to England to visit relatives. The cozy domesticity and accepting, familial love - the music in every house, English candy - that he finds there is movingly described.

From the confines and immense security of his family's one-bedroom apartment Davis learns difficulty and differentness of being the hypervigilant hearing child - conscientious, smart, and emotionally desperate, sometimes - of Deaf parents. There are two brothers in this family, and their interesting but troubled relationship is examined with compassion and intelligence.

Davis is a careful writer with a wonderful and loving sense of the world. Not a word has been wasted. By the way, "Zenth" becomes a Professor of English. His generosity in revealing his life to us is immeasurable. The full picture of the old neighborhood is in itself an excellent historical narrative. You can smell the food - and hear the voices. It's also very funny at times. One of the best autobiographies I've ever read.

The Courage to Live: Donna Gustavel's Triumph Over Cerebral Palsy and Deafness

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The Courage to Live: Donna Gustavel's Triumph Over Cerebral Palsy and Deafness
Dan Brannan
Manufacturer: Dan Brannan Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0965022846

Threading the Snail: My Journey Through Deafness

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Threading the Snail: My Journey Through Deafness
Stephanie D. Halvorson
Manufacturer: Tate Publishing & Enterprises
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1598862472