Communication Barriers

In the Philippines, majority of all hearing-impaired, hard of hearing, and deaf community have a major problem- communication barrier. It has a very huge communication gap between normal hearing people and deaf community. (I do not understand why hearing-impaired and hard of hearing are part of deaf community.  Are there existed some words that are related to them? Perhaps, half deaf?)

Photo Taken at danishkadah.brinkster.net

I remembered when I was in college, I took sign language class to understand the deaf culture. I found hard to do the signing as their English sign language (FSL) is very different from American Sign Language (ASL) due to diminish the use of grammars when signing. That is the main reason why people who study deaf school are very poor in English. Their simple sentences are always in reverse context pattern and lose the use of right words;thus, lacking the emphasis of meaning of the words. (Example - "Not working flash my charger" The real meaning is "The light of the charger is not blinking anymore.") Do you think that normal hearing people understand them? Absolutely not. Even I myself had a difficult time to grasp the meaning of their words at that time as I had a limited English language due to the comprehension problem. (sort of dyslexia)

Fast forward today, I begin to appreciate them better and I hope that the deaf schools will invent some visual learning modalities for improving their English as this will help to diminish the communication gap. I believe it can.  It takes time. :)  There is still hope for them.

Sad to say that I didn't practice my sign language right after this course because my English was not very good too and I found it more confusing when using sign language but I will refresh this sign language next time but with an adopted ASL especially grammars so the deaf people will improve their English.

As for the hearing aids people like me, we still have hope to hear and speak better.  It takes time to get hang of all of the rules on how to hear and speak better.  Just don't give up.

I remembered one time that many hearing aids students went to deaf schools instead of mainstream schools because they couldn't understand the normal hearing people and vice versa so they find comfort and support in the deaf community. Most of them suggested me that I joined with them as I might have a difficult time to mingle with normal hearing people since I'm hearing-impaired. Partly, they were right because I knew that normal hearing people would not comprehend me as they were never been into my shoes. Most of the time, they took advantage of me for their own benefits. 

One day, I had a long walk at the hallway of college, pondering deeply about the choice between deaf and normal hearing people. It was a very hard to choose it as I didn't know the consequences if I chose that path. Think, Think, Think.

After a long silence, I finally decided that I go for normal hearing society no matter how hard it seems. Because I believe that hearing-impaired like me can do anything just like normal hearing people. I just didn't have any user manual on how to deal with it. I just go for it, anyway.  I did say goodbye to my sign language friends and go for the hearing world.

"Communication is the lifeblood of all relationship". I heard this message all the time. That's why, I focus on learning that. Until now, I'm still improving in the art of communication. I thought that studying English course is enough to deal with day-to-day life and I was wrong. There is more to learn that is to know deeper meaning beyond the words. Oh well...

Communication is like a sport, it gives me a lot of sweat whenever I communicate with people because I don't know if I speak the right words or not as I have no intention to hurt people as I am frank and straightforward. Hehe

Tada.