Today is International Day of People with Disability!
Is deafness a disability? Depends who you ask. In a room full of deaf signers, does a hearing person have the disbility? I suppose technically, and by definition, deafness is a disability but I'm sure if you asked a group of deaf people what they thought they would each have a different view depending on their own experience and level of deafness.
I met a girl the other day who called herself hard of hearing. She had experienced many negative responses from people over the years and this made her deafness a disability for her. My own experience has been different. I'm able to work so I don't need any financial support like a pension, I speak and listen so I don't need any special compensation like captions, I don't need any special care or any special consideration really, so essentially, I'm not really disabled am I? I do however, wear a device so I can be enabled. Does wearing a cochlear implant make me less disabled then? When I take the cochlear implant off am I more disabled?
If deafness is a disability then, it's a complicated one! What other disability has it's own language?!
