Documents life in a remote Bedouin village in Israel whose residents communicate through a unique method of sign language used by both hearing and non-hearing citizens, in an account that offers insight into the relationship between language and the human mind. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.

Millions of Americans experience some degree of hearing loss. The Social Security Administration (SSA) operates programs that provide cash disability benefits to people with permanent impairments like hearing loss, if they can show that their impairments meet stringent SSA criteria and their earnings are below an SSA threshold. The National Research Council convened an expert committee at the request of the SSA to study the issues related to disability determination for people with hearing loss. This volume is the product of that study. Hearing Loss: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits reviews current knowledge about hearing loss and its measurement and treatment, and provides an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the current processes and criteria. It recommends changes to strengthen the disability determination process and ensure its reliability and fairness. The book addresses criteria for selection of pure tone and speech tests, guidelines for test administration, testing of hearing in noise, special issues related to testing children, and the difficulty of predicting work capacity from clinical hearing test results. It should be useful to audiologists, otolaryngologists, disability advocates, and others who are concerned with people who have hearing loss.

A mother whose child has had a cochlear implant tells Laura Mauldin why enrollment in the sign language program at her daughter’s school is plummeting: “The majority of parents want their kids to talk.” Some parents, however, feel very differently, because “curing” deafness with cochlear implants is uncertain, difficult, and freighted with judgment about what is normal, acceptable, and right. Made to Hear sensitively and thoroughly considers the structure and culture of the systems we have built to make deaf children hear. Based on accounts of and interviews with families who adopt the cochlear implant for their deaf children, this book describes the experiences of mothers as they navigate the health care system, their interactions with the professionals who work with them, and the influence of neuroscience on the process. Though Mauldin explains the politics surrounding the issue, her focus is not on the controversy of whether to have a cochlear implant but on the long-term, multiyear undertaking of implantation. Her study provides a nuanced view of a social context in which science, technology, and medicine are trusted to vanquish disability—and in which mothers are expected to use these tools. Made to Hear reveals that implantation has the central goal of controlling the development of the deaf child’s brain by boosting synapses for spoken language and inhibiting those for sign language, placing the politics of neuroscience front and center. Examining the consequences of cochlear implant technology for professionals and parents of deaf children, Made to Hear shows how certain neuroscientific claims about neuroplasticity, deafness, and language are deployed to encourage compliance with medical technology.

Long gone are the days when a deaf person is expected to struggle through a healthcare consultation with a health professional who has inadequate deaf awareness. Legislation now dictates that the onus is on the health professional to utilise the right communication skills. Deafness is very common, meaning that health professionals, whatever their specialist area, can expect to encounter a client with deafness or hearing loss on a daily basis. Working with Deaf People is intended for use as a general reference manual, offering practical advice on how to prepare for the consultation with clients who are deaf or deafblind. Information is offered about language, communication and culture; case studies demonstrate how the messages can be applied in practice. Every health professional, medical and nursing student, whatever their discipline and whatever country they work in, should have a copy of this book.

Deaf adults and children, like their hearing counterparts, experience a full range of mental health problems. They develop psychoses, sink into deep depressions, abuse alcohol and drugs, commit sexual offenses, or simply have trouble adjusting to new life situations. But when a deaf client appears on the doorstep of an ordinary hospital, residential facility, clinic, or office, panic often ensues. Mental Health Care of Deaf People: A Culturally Affirmative Approach, offers much-needed help to clinical and counseling psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, and other mental health professionals--and to their program administrators. The editors, a psychologist and a psychiatrist, and the authors, leading authorities with a variety of expertises, systematically review the special needs of deaf patients, particularly those who regard themselves as "culturally Deaf," and provide professionals with the tools they need to meet those needs. Among these tools is an extensive "library" of pictorial questionnaires and information sheets developed by one of the very few psychiatric units in the country devoted to the deaf. These handouts greatly simplify the processes involved in the diagnosis and treatment of people who in many cases are not good readers--for example, explaining medication and inquiring about side-effects. The handouts are reproduced on downloadable resources, to enable purchasers to print out and use copies in their work. This comprehensive clinical guide and its accompanying downloadable resources constitute vital resources for all those who seek to provide sensitive, effective mental health care to deaf people.

This compelling collection advocates for an alternative view of deaf people's literacy, one that emphasizes recent shifts in Deaf cultural identity rather than a student's past educational context as determined by the dominant hearing society. Divided into two parts, the book opens with four chapters by leading scholars Tom Humphries, Claire Ramsey, Susan Burch, and volume editor Brenda Jo Brueggemann. These scholars use diverse disciplines to reveal how schools where deaf children are taught are the product of ideologies about teaching, about how deaf children learn, and about the relationship of ASL and English. Part Two features works by Elizabeth Engen and Trygg Engen; Tane Akamatsu and Ester Cole; Lillian Buffalo Tompkins; Sherman Wilcox and BoMee Corwin; and Kathleen M. Wood. The five chapters contributed by these noteworthy researchers offer various views on multicultural and bilingual literacy instruction for deaf students. Subjects range from a study of literacy in Norway, where Norwegian Sign Language recently became the first language of instruction for deaf pupils, to the difficulties faced by deaf immigrant and refugee children who confront institutional and cultural clashes. Other topics include the experiences of deaf adults who became bilingual in ASL and English, and the interaction of the pathological versus the cultural view of deafness. The final study examines literacy among Deaf college undergraduates as a way of determining how the current social institution of literacy translates for Deaf adults and how literacy can be extended to deaf people beyond the age of 20.