The Deaf Community and Romoff’s Listening Closely: A Narration of Perseverance & Self-Advocacy
The Deaf Community and Romoff’s Listening Closely: A Narration of Perseverance & Self-Advocacy
Honors U.S. History/Honors English 11
Dr. Shapiro/Mrs. Garvar
April 29, 2025
INTRO SLIDE
Throughout American history exists countless cultures, and these cultures help put in a great deal of perspective to how a person lives the life they do now. In telling you about the Deaf & Hard of Hearing community, of which I have been a part of since birth, you will be able to understand the life I have lived until now, and the life I expect to experience in the future in America. As such, it is important to consider what the Deaf community really is and its larger context in American society through a great autobiography of one of my idols, which you will discover soon.
SLIDE 2: FRIENDS
To begin with, I really want to elaborate on the Deaf & Hard of Hearing community and its members. Some common stigmas regarding this community really do exist, especially with identifying the type of hearing loss a person may have. For example, when I said that I was often Deaf or Hard of Hearing, people assumed that I had regular hearing aids, when in actuality, it was the other way around. I’ve also seen situations around my friends in which they actually have hearing aids, but are often asked if they are deaf. It is crucial to understand that when you heard Deaf and Hard of Hearing, this term involves all different forms of hearing loss, like partial hearing loss, full loss of hearing in only one ear, deterioration of hearing in both ears, deafness in both ears, hearing loss resulting from disorders, diseases, viral infections, and so forth. There are many circumstances in which a person can be qualified to be known as a member of the Deaf & Hard of Hearing community. Such communities have branches worldwide, but they tend to advocate and teach the same thing to both new members and to outsiders who have normal and typical hearing.
SLIDE 3: COMMUNICATION
There is also a great variation in how a Deaf & Hard of Hearing member communicates in daily life. According to a study on this particular community by three professors at the Rochester Institute of Technology, people rely on cochlear implants or regular hearing aids, undergo speech therapy, and begin to speak in a verbal way. Others may simply choose to accept their hearing loss or deafness and stay silent or use sign language, commonly American Sign Language, simply ASL (Greer, Holcomb, Siple, 2014). Henceforth, it is important to consider the preferences of communication modes a Deaf or Hard of Hearing person would appreciate. As a member of the Deaf community myself, because I was operated on at a earlier age and fitted with a cochlear implant before the age of three, as well as receiving much speech therapy early head on, I never had to learn ASL and was taught to speak verbally, which is technically my preferred form of communication. For some of my friends with hearing loss that declines rapidly over time, they had to plan ahead and learn ASL, so that when they can’t hear something, they immediately resort to signing. Such hearing loss, especially, can occur at any time in one’s lifetime. For me and like some other people, we were born deaf. For others, they may have normal hearing at first, but then begin to decline so fast that when they reach adulthood, a good portion of their hearing is lost.
SLIDE 4: THE DEVICES
Sometimes, on a regular basis, elderly people begin to lose their hearing as part of the normal life cycle and degeneration, and can choose on cochlear implants or hearing aids. Therefore, never believe that whenever the term Deaf & Hard of Hearing comes about, that there is only one or two or three different types of hearing loss, but instead numerous possibilities across different time periods in a single lifetime.
Now, to consider this in American society, we have to first understand the values and beliefs traditionally held by the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. Some of the most prominent values we believe are important for our individual and communal success are self-advocacy and perseverance, specifically. These are two values of which I strongly believe in, values that many leaders and teachers among the Deaf & Hard of Hearing community staunchly preach about. Perseverance is rather held in high regard, especially considering the unique journey every person may have had to endure in their lifetimes, and the struggle of the people who have strived to help them.
SLIDE 5: THE SURGERY
For me, my diagnosis as being deaf made my parents go ahead with a surgery, unsure whether it would be successful. Surgery for a cochlear implant was complex. According to professionals trained in otolaryngology, the study of the whole head, at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, there are three parts to an implant, such as the magnet piece that goes inside the head, the outer magnet headpiece, and the little T-mic that helps detect sounds and transfer them to my brain in lieu of my nerves (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 2014). The thing was, it was less riskier to do so at a younger age, at infancy, when the skull is more softer and the overall head structure is malleable. That was the process I went through, and it’s safer to say that you most likely won’t remember it as much at a younger age than an adult would going through the same procedure. Still, for all ages, the recovery stage is one of the hardest to bear, especially for the families. When I did my first cochlear implant on my right ear in 2010, the implanting procedure went well, but the recovery of the suture did not. I was told that I was sick for a while, which mandated a couple stays in the hospital. The suture had been opened and a hole was all you could see.
SLIDE 5: MY PARENTS
My parents opted for another surgery a few months later, this time on my left ear. Although cochlear implants were an approved method of treatment since the 1980s and 1990s worldwide , in India, it was still uncommon by the 2000s, more so because people found it difficult to pay for it. Thankfully, this was a success, but I did not speak until I was five.
SLIDE 6: THE CAPTIONS
Then there is also the ideal of self-advocacy, the means by which a person stands up for themselves. In ancient times, being Deaf or Hard of Hearing was often seen as a disability and often meant the person was “dumb” or could not understand what was going on around them, which made trying to overcome this misconception quite tedious. Nowadays, with technology such as microphones and services like accommodations, people can selectively choose to prove that they are just as “normal” as anyone else. They get to speak up, to tell their teachers or managers not to underestimate them, or even tell them that they need help with certain things. For me, the most common thing I like to ask my teachers and anywhere else is to always have closed captioning available. It’s not that I can’t understand English, but in movies or videos featuring people with different accents and tones of different backgrounds, it does make it harder for me to catch on to what multiple people are saying. When I don’t get closed captioning or whether it’s unavailable, I always want to talk with my teachers or whoever is playing the video for a transcript, which helps me be able to follow along and make sense of what words are playing. Most often, we want to not be looked down on, and make sure that we can survive and make our way through life as we manage multiple kinds of hurdles. This helps Americans change their perception of their own Deaf and Hard of Hearing community while also implementing these same beliefs and values into the broader culture that enlists Americans to be brave. By being bold, members of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community in America challenge age-old misconceptions and bring in a new era of mutual understanding of our capabilities.
SLIDE 7: ARLENE ROMOFF
Now I will be talking about my Core Text, which is Listening Closely, an autobiography written by Arlene Romoff in 2011 that details her transition from hearing aids to cochlear implants, and the services, struggles, and discoveries she encountered on the way. Born and raised in New Jersey, she grew up with degenerative hearing loss, hearing loss that declines over time since her teenage years. As she mentioned in her novel Listening Closely, her hearing aids failed and she was diagnosed as fully deaf during her middle adulthood. She went for bilateral cochlear implant surgery, right side, then left side, both successful, but she did face a lot of challenges, such as convincing people that she couldn’t make sense out of the radio even if they turned up the volume, or feeling left out if she’s not able to comprehend or hear what others are saying during concerts (Romoff, 2011). But at the end of the novel, she emphasizes how important it was for her to endure all of that, to push through, to fight, to overcome whatever obstacles were thrown at her. I relate to her through what it means to be an American Deaf and Hard of Hearing community member by practicing and supporting the idea of self-advocacy, and the numerous experiences she has gone through with or without cochlear implants. Used to America in a society where cochlear implants have already become the norm in the middle 2000s, she grew up with hearing aids that recommended for her to learn ASL and lip-reading, which became helpful as she navigated deafness before her cochlear implant surgeries. By then there were many recent services dedicated to helping people with hearing loss with therapy and financial aid, and any other services needed. Although different laws and programs differ from state to state, like how different benefits can be if they came from my California rather than Romoff’s New Jersey, they all aim at helping individuals of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community in any setting and form possible. For me, I get most of my services through education, specifically my accommodations. I sit in the front to hear my teachers better, and I get closed captioning or transcripts for videos and movies we watch so that I can understand without having to struggle to make out what the words are and be behind multiple scenes. America is committed to helping our Deaf and Hard of Hearing community in numerous ways.
LAST SLIDE: THE COLLAGE & THANK YOU
Culturally throughout time in America, we have seen that members of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community have always preserved through lots of physical, mental, and social challenges as they return to what we consider as “normal life” and understand their role in American society today.