7 Ways to Honor International Week of the Deaf

International Week of the Deaf began September 19 and ends Sunday, September 25, 2022. It is an event celebrated by the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) during the last full week of September. This year’s theme is “Inclusion Deafness”. 

In the United States there are about 11.5 million Americans with hearing impairment ranging from difficulty in understanding conversations to total deafness. The Deaf and hard-of-hearing (HOH) constitute 3.5% of the population. 

It is likely that sometime this week (or any week) you may run into a person with hearing loss. To understand what they are going through, here are suggested activities you can participate in for a better understanding of the problems Deaf and HOH Americans experience daily. 

1. Read a good book with Deaf characters. As a Deaf writer, I’ve authored four books with Deaf characters. Click on the links to learn more.

• Koolura and the Mystery at Camp Saddleback  

• Koolura and the Mayans 

• Goodbye, Tchaikovsky 

• The Lip Reader 

2. Watch the news with the sound off using only captions. Note the quality of the captions for each program you watch.

3. Watch a movie or TV show with Deaf characters.

• Children of a Lesser God

• CODA

• Switched at Birth

4. Take the “Unfair Spelling Test”  to see what it’s like to experience hearing loss. 

5. Take the Youtube Challenge #3: The Lip Reading Challenge is a 2:24 minute video. Test to see what it’s like to lipread. 

6. Learn the American Manual Alphabet. If you are speaking to a deaf person and they ask you to repeat a word or phrase, if you knew the deaf alphabet you could fingerspell the word improving the recipient’s chance to understand. And they will love you for it.  

1. Learn about Famous Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing people. Here are a few examples:

• Haben Girma is a disability rights lawyer. She was the first deaf-blind person to graduate from Harvard Law School.

• Laurent Clerc, a key figure in the development of American Sign Language. He cofounded the first school for the Deaf with Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.

• Troy Kostur was the first male Deaf actor to win an academy award.

The Pandemic was very hard on all of us, but especially difficult for the Deaf and HOH. Imagine depending on lip reading, but all the mouths are covered by a mask. I would enter a store, explain to the salesperson, “I’m deaf and can’t understand what you’re saying.” That would be followed by the salesperson screaming. (I knew this because her mask stretched further than usual.) A few had the courage to remove their masks and even fewer knew a couple of signs or the Manual Alphabet to explain themselves. Tears welled in my eyes for those people who cared enough to help me. God bless you and thank you for learning a little bit about Deaf Culture and ASL.