Deaf/Blind

People who are Deaf/Blind have a dual loss of sight and hearing and they face severe difficulties. I am not totally blind and I am not totally deaf, I have hearing aids to help me to hear speech but nothing to make me see like a normal sighted person because at present there is no cure or treatment available for Usher Syndrome which is an eye disease where people progressively lose their sight and hearing.

I did not find it hard being deaf when I was a little girl in the 1940’s because I was never aware that I was different to the other village children. I had a strong relationship with my mother who wanted the best for her daughter however being deaf made me who and what I am; it is part of me. Having said that, I appreciate the fact that I would not have made the friends that I had at the two schools that I attended and thereafter and I will always be grateful for the headmistress, Mrs Groves who recognised that I was not coping with the school work at Scarcliffe Primary School  because I was hearing impaired.

I found connecting to the hearing world after leaving school very challenging with communication being top of the list for being the reason why it was so difficult.  There are several different ways that people with usher syndrome can communicate with other people such as speech, hearing aids, lip-reading, finger spelling and the British Sign language. I use speech, hearing aids and lip-reading but as my field vision changes, by that I mean get smaller it becomes harder for me to lip-read and thus become more dependent on my hearing aids. I went to two deaf schools but never learned how to sign properly, some of my school friends were experts but now, I wished that someone had shown me how to sign properly. It would have been useful for me but having said that none of my family can sign but recently have expressed a wish to learn. The manner in which people sign would have to change too because as the field vision narrows then the area needed to sign would have to narrow as well.  Many deaf/blind people find tactile signing such as the British Sign Language and finger spelling very useful but though I admit that I am no expert when it comes to signing I do know some signs and can do finger spelling.

Here is a bit of history; I cannot tell you who created the British Sign Language but I do know that Thomas Braidwood, a teacher from Edinburgh in Scotland founded “Braidwood Academy for the Deaf and Dumb” in 1760 and it is acknowledged to be the first school for the deaf in Britain. Thomas Braidwood’s early use of sign language was regarded as the beginning of what was to become the sign language of to-day. When I was a pupil at the Mary Hare Grammar School I was in Braidwood House. The British Sign Language is the main sign language in the United Kingdom and is the first language for many deaf people.