208 FOR HEARING PEOPLE ONLY

Chapter 36

What do you call a deaf person

who doesn't speak?
-Helen Levitan, Haverhill, Massachusetts
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ou call her or him a deaf person, that's what.

Back in the not-so-good old days, hearing folks
felt the need to make a distinction between deaf
persons who "could talk like a normal person"
and those who didn't. Those who didn't speak
were branded "deaf-mutes" or "deaf-and-dumb."l Is it a
question of the inability to speak?Hardly. We have yet to meet
a deaf person who doesn't have the full complement of vocal
equipment. And a22 deaf children, no matter what kind of
school they attend, are subjected to an intensive regimen of
speech therapy and auditory training. (Some, of course,
refuse to continue. But many do because their parents insist
on it.) This means that, technically, virtually all deaf children
can speak.
It is estimated, however, that a congenitally, profoundly
deaf child has, at most, a 5%chance of developing intelligible
speech. We have to be realistic. Because they cannot hear
themselves talk, profoundly deaf people cannot control the
pitch, inflection, or loudness of their voices. Some have had
humiliating experiences when they tried to "talk normally"
in public and were greeted by screwed-up, disdainful faces
that said, "Ugh, you sound like a freak!" From our own
observations, the quality of a deaf person's intonation has
little, if anything, to do with the kind of education they've
received-oral or sign-based.We've met alumni of the Clarke
School, the best-known oral school in the country, who have
become full-time signers and whose voices are just as unintel-
ligible as any other deaf voice.