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The Rebuttal

Tag: writing

  • Hats Off to Interpreters

    adefinty2

    Hello, I am Gary Kerridge author of The Rebuttal. Today my article is called “Hats Off To Interpreters.” Today’s article is really about interpreters. However, before I talk about interpreters I will talk a little bit about myself.

    Ok, I have worked in this space of community services for almost 40 years. I have had many different jobs. I have worked in the NDIS. I have worked in community services. I have worked as an advocate for individuals. I have also supported families. I have worked in employment support and in education.

    Through my work I meet with many people. Sometimes my work with them is great and we achieve good outcomes and that is very rewarding. But, it is not always like that. Why? Because often I witness their pain. I see their trauma.

    Everyday Deaf people all over Australia are experiencing barriers. At hospital they cannot communicate with their doctor. Maybe they need to call an ambulance but they cannot. Sometimes their NDIS is cut or Centrelink cut their benefits. Sometimes they need specialist counselling about their deafness but they cannot find a counsellor that understands deafness.

    Many have different barriers and are experiencing trauma because of these barriers. Some of them tell me their stories about sexual abuse. Some tell me about their experience of domestic violence. I see their frustration and anger because their income has been cut by Centrelink. I see many people frustrated because the NDIS has cut their support. Through my work I witness many things.

    When I see their trauma and they describe to me their experience, I feel it too. This is called vicarious trauma. Whether it’s NDIS, Centrelink, personal issues or whatever – I feel it too! How do I survive this?

    Well, I need self care. How? Sometimes I speak with my boss and offload my experience to them. Sometimes I speak with colleagues and seek their advice and empathy. Sometimes I have sought professional support through counsellors and my works EAP. In this way I can discuss issues with a neutral person. Sometimes, I just take a break and go for a walk. Self care is important.

    I am not made of stone. The experience and trauma of the people that I work with impacts me. For me to survive and continue in my work, it means I must look after myself. If I didn’t do that, it is unlikely I would have survived 40 years in this job.

    Let’s forget about me for the time being and talk about interpreters. Many people think that interpreters have this cushy job. They get to interpret theatre or rock concerts. They get to interpret emergency announcements on TV. They are almost super hero’s.

    This is far from the case. They have to do a variety of jobs. They interpret at hospitals. They have to interpret at the NDIS. They interpret at Centrelink. They have to interpret at counselling appointment’s. They do mental health and marriage counselling appointments. They witness relationship breakdowns, sexual abuse and domestic violence.

    Like me they see and feel the trauma of the people that they support. Like me, they experience vicarious trauma.

    Recently, Expression Australia released their Auslan Emergency Interpreting App. This app allows Auslan users to dial 000 and connect with ambulance, fire or police in the same way that hearing people do. This happens through an Auslan interpreter. If you have an emergency like a car crash or a heart attack you now can call 000 with an Auslan interpreter. It is fantastic. Congratulations to Expression Australia on this terrific initiative.

    Recently, I spoke to an Auslan interpreter about this app. They said that they would never, ever work as an interpreter in this service. I was a little bit taken aback.

    They explained to me that the emergency calls would be extremely visual. Imagine, for example, someone involved in a car crash. They call for an ambulance. They might be severely injured with blood pouring everywhere. The interpreter will experience and see everything.

    Or they may receive a call from a person experiencing abuse and need the police. Through the call they will see the stress and trauma of the caller. They may actually through the call hear and see the abuse happening. Someone might have attempted suicide and are calling for assistance, the interpreter will see and experience all of this.

    My friend, the interpreter, said that there is no way that they could cope with that. The trauma would be too much. So they have taken a decision to never work in that environment. They made the point that the visual aspect is so much more impactful than just hearing things over the phone. Good on them in recognising these important issues.

    It made me wonder, wonderful as AEI is, have they considered the support that the interpreters will need in dealing with the stressful situations that they will experience. Counselling? Peer support? Debriefing? All these things need careful consideration.

    I am confident Expression Australia are across all these things. I know that the interpreting and Deaf relationship is a symbiotic one. One can not exist without the other. However, I really empathise with just how difficult and complex interpreting can be.

    That’s why I say – Hats off to interpreters!

    With respect!

  • F**K

    adefinty2

    I was 13 years old. I asked my 13 year old friend Karl why my 14 year old friend Claire was avoiding me. I liked Claire. She was the only girl I knew who could play keepy up better than the boys. She could juggle the ball on her feet and knees over 500 times. She made it look easy. Suddenly she was avoiding me and my mate said it was because – “She thinks you wanna f**k her”

    I literally had no idea what he was talking about. I had been profoundly deaf since I was eight or nine years old. I certainly knew the word “F**K”, it was a swear word. You could f**k off. You couldn’t be f**ked. It was f**king awesome and so on. To me it was just a bad word like bloody, and bugger and shit. But I quite honestly had no idea that it could be used as a verb meaning to copulate, hide the sausage and just have plain old SEX!

    You know what this means? It means that I am one of the millions of young deaf people the world over that has been a victim of language deprivation. Yes me! Me, the university graduate. Yes, me the writer of The Rebuttal. Yes, me the well known and experienced disability advocate. I am a victim of language deprivation!

    Now most definitions of language deprivation focus on the deaf child’s early language acquisition years. This is between the ages of 1 and 5. It is said that language deprivation is the result of the lack of language stimuli in these crucial language acquisition years. So a deaf child who is unable to hear misses out on language access, which can lead to them becoming language deprived.

    However, my own personal definition is that language acquisition is ongoing. You learn it through overhearing. Through overhearing you learn new vocabulary and new sophisticated ways to use language. This happens through hearing others in completely random and natural discussions. Language acquisition occurs through interaction, overhearing conversations, access to information on the radio and TV and so on. This huge communication cycle contributes to us developing language continuously.

    In my case I had access to language in the early critical years. I acquired the basics of grammar and developed a quite extensive vocabulary. Then at age 8 this access suddenly stopped and was hindered. This meant my ongoing sophisticated language and conceptual development was impacted. Hence my lack of knowledge of the word F**K and its nuances.

    Let’s imagine a group of young people chatting in a group at lunch time. Perhaps Betty caught her big brother in the act last night. The kids are discussing this and using all sorts of language and words to describe what Betty saw. I don’t need to share the words here, it would range from biological to completely lewd.

    Then Tony shares a story of what he heard when his sister brought her boyfriend home and snuck into her bedroom. Sally describes what she heard on the radio about sexually transmitted diseases – just because its relevant. Everyone is sharing. learning and developing new vocabulary from the discussions in the group. They are also being exposed to new concepts and experiences.

    Of course these discussions are not limited to sex but our teenage years are generally when we begin to explore sex and intimate relationships in more detail. These “group” discussions also will explore what was taught in the classroom and students further their learning through each other. They would discuss world events and ideologies. Through our peers we explore complex issues and concepts. This contributes to our development and maturity.

    But not me, as a teenager I missed most of this peer learning. I was at a mainstream school. I was part of peer groups but not really participating because I could not hear what was going on. The consequence of this? Not being exposed to new vocabulary. Not hearing discussions about sexual intercourse and the the words associated with it. It is not just dirty talk that I missed, it was also exposure to age appropriate talk about relationships and more mature concepts such as political ideologies.

    I was certainly part of the group. I sat with the group with my football waiting for someone to come play on the oval. These group chats were boring simply because I had no access to them. I would rather play football.

    I suspect that hearing kids tolerated me and thought of me as a bit of a drag. If I did speak it was probably about sport and something completely unrelated to what the group were talking about.

    In my teenage years I simply lacked the language, conceptual and social development that comes with everyday interaction and communication. The consequence of this was that I was unable to develop those age-appropriate social relationships and closer intimate relationships that teenagers do. Looking back, puberty was a lonely and confusing time.

    What I am describing here is the impact of language deprivation in later years. The more academic among us will say that I had language and I was later able to fill in the missing pieces. They will say that what I am describing does not really fit the proper definition of language deprivation. I accept that this is true, but the impact of lack of access to more sophisticated language and concepts in my later childhood years had a profound impact on my maturity.

    The isolation that I experienced, the lack of age appropriate social experiences, the confusion and the anxiety that resulted were very real. All of it related to a lack access to communication and and age appropriate language development. It meant that through adolescence I struggled socially and my self esteem was shot.

    I don’t write this to garner sympathy, I write it to show that language deprivation and any barrier to continuous language development can have profound consequences. We have a society today that focuses on “hearing” and providing the tools to hear. In doing so we create an environment that is impeding the education and social development of many young deaf people.

    How many times have we heard about deaf kids that “They are doing well ..“. But really, just how well are these deaf kids doing? How much better could they do with more focus on their inclusion, more access to environmental chatter, more access to social interaction? – And I mean proper access, not just bits and pieces.

    Oliver Sacks in his book, Seeing Voices, said this, “A human being is not mindless or mentally deficient without language, but he is severely restricted in the range of his thoughts, confined, in effect, to an immediate, small world.” I know that I was. I know that even kids with cochlear implants experience at school and home what I experienced every day. Our education system and support systems need to acknowledge this.

    “Doing well...” Is not enough. Deaf kids need to thrive. They need tools to access the rich discussions and information that are around them throughout the day. It’s through this access that they thrive, achieve and become functioning human beings. For this reason we need to properly look at what INCLUSION really means for deaf kids. It is not just BEING THERE! I hope from this article the reader can see that it is infinitely more complex than that.

    What’s the result of language deprivation in a deaf persons later years? Well according to Wyatte C.Hall, in his paper published in the Maternal and Child Health Journal in 2017, the resuts are “… cognitive delays, mental health difficulties, lower quality of life, higher trauma, and limited health literacy.”

    Well F**K! Perhaps it’s long past time that we did something about it!

  • Losing It!!

    adefinty2
    Photo is of the old Adelaide Deaf Society at 262 South Terrace. It shows the front of a beautifully designed red brick building with plush green trees in the forefront. There is text on the graphic that says ‘Save 262, Our Second Home”

    It’s National Week of Deaf People. It has given me cause to reflect on my long involvement with the Deaf community. Despite the title of this article, I am not losing my mind – although others may beg to differ. What the title is referring to in this piece is whether the Deaf community is LOSING IT. Not in terms of its mind, but rather in its identity and history.

    I remember the first time that I set eyes on the iconic Deaf community home at 262 South Terrace in Adelaide. This was in 1983 when I took part in a youth activity to the Monash adult playground. The late John Hallett was the youth group leader at the time. I didn’t go into the building; just hopped on the bus outside of it.

    Now that little trip was probably my first true exposure to the Deaf community. Young people on the trip told me about the Deaf Club on Friday nights. I met a nice young Deaf girl on the trip so going to the Deaf Club had an added attraction.

    This began a regular Friday night thing. I would hop on the bus from Para Hills and go to the Deaf Club. I’d have a beer or three, then hit the nightclubs after. Through the Deaf Club, I got roped into playing Deaf cricket. So in the summer it was cricket on Wednesdays, Kings Head for a drink and the last bus home at 12:15. This would be followed by the Deaf Club on Fridays. Wonderful times.

    The Deaf Club was my social thing. After that initial exposure in 1983, I had gone to England and experienced Deaf Clubs over there. I studied in Brisbane and had the pleasure of attending Newmarket Deaf Club in Queensland. In the ensuing years, I was lucky to experience Stanmore Deaf Club in NSW and Jolimont Deaf Club in Melbourne. Fantastic places to meet Deaf people and make new friends.

    In 1989 I got a job at the Royal South Australian Deaf Society at the great old 262. I struck up a good friendship with Donovan Cresdee and John Hallett. I learnt of the rich history of the Deaf community through their eyes.

    Prior to that, the Deaf Club was just my source of fun. I knew very little about the history but when I started work at the old 262 building, I got exposure to so much history. I used to love Wednesdays when the Senior Citizens group came. I’d sit with them through my lunch break and they would tell me stories of the rich history of the building. Boy were they rebels. The regaled me with many tales including one of a prominent Deaf community member who apparently rode his motorcycle up the stairs of 262!

    I learnt of marriages upstairs in the chapel. It was a beautiful chapel. I believe the chapel was designed by members of the Deaf community. Seating was semi-circular so that all could see each other. The seats were slightly higher in each row so vision was not impeded. I understand the chapel was lovingly built by Deaf tradespeople as well. We talk about Deaf Space today like it’s a new and recent thing. Well it’s been around for a very long time.

    I learnt of the fundraising efforts of the Deaf community to pay for 262. I learnt how the Deaf community volunteered their time to develop the building. It was theirs. They owned it and they were rightly proud of their Deaf home and its history.

    The Deaf Club used to be the hub of action of the Australian Deaf Games. Registrations would be at the Deaf Club. At the end of the sporting day, participants of the Games would hone in to the Deaf Club. Stories of the day’s sport would be shared. Many a Deaf person met their future partners during these times. It was a time when people recognised that the Deaf Club and the State Deaf Society were an integral part of the Deaf community.

    I guess the one negative of the old Deaf Society model was that they were led mostly by hearing people. Even so, it was recognised across Australia that the Deaf Society and Deaf Club were often the soul of the Deaf community. But not any more.

    The National Week of Deaf People has given me cause to look back on these wonderful memories. I have witnessed wonderful events recently that have been led and organised by Deaf people and these have made me reflect on the years gone by. There was the wonderful Deaf Eco Summit in Sydney. Straight after the Summit was the fantastically organised Deaf Festival that was attended by over 4000 people. Fabulous! Kudos to Deaf Connect for their wonderful support of these two brilliant events.

    Then there was the Flow Festival. Another showcase of Deaf culture with Deaf creative artists that incorporated our First Nations Deaf people and culture. This was wonderfully led by the fantastic Sigrid McDonald and her team. For a week, we had a thriving hub where the Deaf community could meet and feel pride in its achievements and rich culture once again.

    These events were free, save some of the ticketed performances and the stalls that businesses had to pay for. However, the Deaf community could just rock up and mingle at no cost. It was fantastic to see.

    Whilst I celebrate these wonderful events, I still hanker for those days of old. Those days where the Deaf community had community hubs to be proud of. Where they could access their rich history, institutions and heritage. I hanker for that time where these institutions and their history could be accessed freely and with pride by the Deaf community.

    It just seems a bit sad to me now that the rich history and sense of belonging that I was able to experience can now only be accessed when these big events like the Deaf Eco Summit, Deaf Festival or Flow Festival are organised. Long may those events continue, but I think it’s good to look back on what we once had, and maybe fight to restore some of it.

    In the meantime, I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with the events that the Deaf community work so hard to organise so that the sense of community and history is not lost. It’s either that or PAYING for a tour of one of our great Deaf institutions that is now no longer freely available to the Deaf community. Yep, we gotta pay!

    And that is a real tragedy!

  • Silence Was My Way of Surviving ~ By Donovan Vincent Cresdee.

    adefinty2
    Image is of a little boy in old convict uniform. he has a convict cap and the number 207693 on the front. The image is super imposed to make it look like he is standing out the front of St Marys Portsea school.

    I have known Don for many years. He has a PhD so is more correctly a Doctor. He has worked hard over many years for the Deaf community and is an absolute icon. This is part of his story and I am proud to share it. With his permission.

    When I was boarding at St. Mary’s School for the Deaf, people often called me “the quiet boy.” Older girls said it, my Deaf family said it. But the truth? I wasn’t naturally that quiet. I just didn’t speak orally, and I didn’t sign in that environment either.

    I think my dad believed I got my quietness from my mum. She grew up with language deprivation too, and it made her reserved and soft-spoken (and not because she signed quietly, she just didn’t say much). But in my case, I don’t think it was inherited. It was shaped by the school’s oral-only rules and the punishments that came if you broke them. Still, maybe my father had a point. I’ll talk more about my personality, especially my quietness and shyness and how these traits might have been switched on by an epigenetic marker in my next Facebook post.

    When I was about four, I started questioning who I was. At home, I used Auslan naturally. It was my language. But one day at school, after being punished for signing, a nun and a priest used a few signs to tell me Auslan was banned. I didn’t fully understand why, but I understood enough: signing was not allowed.

    So I made a choice no speaking, no signing at school. Silence became my shield. If I stayed quiet, I could avoid punishment. But it came at a cost. I couldn’t follow instructions or keep up with conversations by lipreading, so I often ended up in trouble anyway.

    When I left St. Mary’s at eight, my personality slowly shifted. Over the years, my quietness turned into defensiveness, stubbornness, and sometimes even anger. Later, learning about the history of oralism and language deprivation helped me change again. I became more assertive, calmer, and more patient. I even learned to forgive people who still choose to communicate only through speech.

    But the triggers never fully go away. I remember once going to a police station and asking the officer for a pen and paper. She gave me a look that “you’re stupid” look just because I couldn’t lipread. Another time, about ten years ago, I was at the funeral of my lifelong friend Barry Priori’s oldest oral-deaf brother, Peter. When people were offering their condolences to the family, Barry’s brother-in-law told me I should “learn oral and lipreading.” In that moment, it all came flooding back, the judgment, the exclusion, the feeling of being “less than.”