Carol Ashey

ENGL 491
Dr. Land
September 24, 2014

Installment 2

Ultimately, everyone wants to find a place where they belong in society, people with
disabilities included. Unfortunately, the majority of history concerning people with disabilities
has been one of exclusion and isolation. Most were either kept at home or sent to institutions
because they were seen as a burden not only on the family but on society as a whole. My
disability history begins in the 1980s.
During the 1980s and 1990s, there was a series of movements called the Disability
Rights Movement that focused on ending discrimination towards people with disabilities and
providing equal opportunities as well as access to schools and work places. These movements
were finalized in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which were passes as laws in 1990; I was three years old at
the time.
Social success, to me, is defined as being able to express oneself and communicate, make
and maintain relationships, set boundaries within those relationships, be sensitive to the needs of
others, and be able to respectfully disagree with others, and also to handle stressful situations. As
for the world itself, some people would say that social success is being abled, this obviously does
not fit with persons who have disabilities, and yet everyone deserves to have a place within
society regardless of their ability. How do persons with disabilities define social success then?
The Deaf Community decided to create their own group of like people in order to succeed in a
majority Hearing world. Their world is full of people who all know sign language in one form or

another and who all to some extent grew up with or around Deafness. The community is close,
many of its members having attended schools for the Deaf as children. Social success to the
Deaf, then, is having a sense of community. Likewise, hearing people share a sense of
community through music, radio, film, and social media.
But what if you are hard of hearing? You are not completely d/Deaf, nor are you
completely hearing. In which group would you fit? The answer in neither, at least, not
completely; having a hearing loss makes you invisible (to an extent). You do not use sign
language, but you dont catch all of the conversation either. I am hard of hearing. Some of the
things I share with the hearing world are listening to music and the radio, and some of the things
I share with the Deaf world are ASL and closed captioning on films and television. People are
often surprised to learn that I have a hearing loss, largely because I dont sound like a Deaf
person when I speak, this is because I started losing my hearing around the age of four, after I
had acquired language. I did not get my first pair of hearing aids until first grade. There will
always be situations where I cannot hear best; they are usually situations and events that attract a
lot of people, like music concerts, restaurants, sporting events, and amusement parks. While
hearing aids do amplify sounds, they do not make specific sounds clearer. It is harder for me as a
person with a hearing loss to tune out background noise, like chatter from a food court or
cafeteria. While newer models of hearing aids have the technology to do this today, they did not
ten years ago (to me at least).
How does someone with a hearing loss get by in a crowded, loud, keep-up-with-the-pace world?
It is in no way easy. For example, there are a number of ways that I will need to advocate for
myself in order to be successful as a person with a hearing loss. The first is no bluffing; bluffing
in this case means acting like I do understand what someone has said when I really didnt, this

often happens with jokes in not hearing the punch line correctly. I will have ti advocate for
myself by asking others to rephrase what theyve said, which will take patience; this act is
frustrating more often than not, but is necessary. The most important advocating I can do for
myself is not using my disability as a crutch (ex. because of xyz, I cant).
My overarching theme didnt involve Disability Studies until I decided to incorporate my
cognitive disability, which changed the Identity aspect from a HH one to a Disabled one. In this
case, I went from specific to broad(er). The current conversation in Disability Studies is
attempting to move away from legal, psychological, medical, and scientific definition of
disability to an intersectional, cultural, social, and historical one. What is Disability Studies?
Disability Studies is a field of study that focuses on how disability is defined in a society as well
as represented. In my experiences reading articles concerning this topic, the concern today is
changing how people with disabilities are represented be that in school, in literature, or other
forms of media. Another concern is getting people with disabilities to name and claim their
various experienced in an attempt to break stereotypes. Yet another concern is the labeling itself.
Terminology for disabled persons is still largely from the medical field which takes a negative
point of view, including the term disabled. The use of extremely negative terms for people
with disabilities has been termed ableist because it promotes the stereotypical attitude of
people with disabilities as burdens and tragic cases. Some terms that have been suggested to
replace the negative ones are differently abled, and Marie, who uses a wheelchair.
I have learned a lot through reading what I have on this topic. I also know that legal cases
involving disabilities have to be done on a case by case basis because although the ADA and
IDEA were passed and implemented the wording is vague in some areas and appears to create
loopholes for non disabled people to use in not providing accommodations. The most important

fact I have learned throughout my research is how non accommodating society is towards people
with disabilities. Some examples are insurance not paying for my hearing aids, or an insurance
company willing to pay for a ten thousand dollar power wheelchair that a person with CP doesnt
need rather than paying the two thousand for a scooter that they do need. The second most
important aspect I have learned is twofold; that I am now more informed and aware of the world
concerning disabilities, especially that my part in the conversation is important and needs to be
named and claimed.
I have also learned that naming and claiming ones disability experiences and identity
concerning society it a complex process, especially since ones identity makes up many strands,
society being only one. I have learned more in depth what my accommodations are as a hard of
hearing person. As for my cognitive disability, I am still getting used to the idea of
accommodating for it since I only learned about it a couple years ago. The accommodations I
have used for it in my time here at GWU have been tremendously helpful, now I have to think
about the various accommodations for it in the working world.
As for where I stand on this section, I am in the middle. This section has raised more
questions than answers; I would love to do more research, such as in depth in to the legal and
psychological aspects of society and disability, but alas, there isnt time to do so. As for the
labels debate I mentioned aerloier, I have grown more uncomfortable with some of the current
terminology; some I am okay with such as naming the person first and then the disability, but
Im not entirely sure about changing the term disability itself. The term differently abled
seems overly tolerant and politically correct to me. It also sounds and feels clunky, whereas
disability flows a lot smoother. I dont like that a lot of the terminology that is currently in use,
but it is what is currently available. If the terminology is going to be changed, then I suggest that

people with disabilities talk to people in the various fields about what terms would and would not
be appropriate.