I agree with moggymania

[conuly]

MTV isn't the first place I'd go looking for decent advice on People With Disabilities^TM, but it works.

Even the stuff about "PERSONFIRSTLANGUAGERAR!" is coupled with a note that people have their own preferences, and that not everyone may like being a Person With.

The world, it endeth.

Edit: I can't bring myself to put Griff's latest linkypost on its own entry, because it's too much to do that, but go read. griffen is just one of the coolest people I know.

Comments

[code-epic.livejournal.com]

People grab me, and I'm Deaf. It's my ears that don't work; my legs are just fine. Like conuly, I think this article is a good first step in the right direction. Everything it says regarding Deaf and hard of hearing people looks accurate to me, and I especially appreciate that it acknowledges Deaf culture.

I have a question that I hope you won't mind answering. How should I, or any other Deaf person who doesn't speak, should interact with a blind person who isn't aware that I'm Deaf in the first place? I've communicated comfortably with blind individuals through sign language interpreters before, but a couple of years ago I was alone in a Metro station when a blind man approached me. I was able to figure out that he wanted me to lead him to one of the farecard kiosks, but to this day I don't know if he ever realized that I'm Deaf or thought I was just unusually tight-lipped. There were hearing commuters all around us, but of course no one stopped to help.

I can't pronounce the sentence, "I am Deaf." The Metro station incident was a freak occurrence: out of all the commuters in that rush hour, the man just happened to choose the one Deaf girl there. But in case I ever again find myself alone with a blind person, do you have advice as to how I can tell him or her that I'm Deaf without transgressing any physical contact boundaries too badly? Thanks in advance - Leigh.

[leora.livejournal.com]

The blind trying to interact with the deaf just doesn't tend to work well, well, not in person. Unfortunately, it really is a comedy situation. I have managed nice interactions with deaf and hard of hearing people, but there were people who could translate ASL for me.

I can think of many things that could work, but the real problem is that not all blind people are the same. If the person is partially sighted, as many blind people are, you might manage with gestures toward your ears and mouth to make it somewhat clear. You might manage to communicate a lack of ability to communicate if you can just make unintelligible sounds. And if you are really worried about the possibility, you could try to get a bit of Braille that says "I am deaf". That'd be easy to Braille, if you have access to some method of Brailling, which most people don't. And, of course, not all blind people can read Braille.

I think you mainly have to hope it doesn't happen. Because while things could be arranged to allow for communication, it's not going to be easy to just communicate with a blind person with no warning and in the timespan of a random encounter. Sometimes disabilities really do get in the way. That's just the way it is.