Doesn't that already imply that you're expecting the full scale study to say that they are equal?
No. It will show as a whole that they are not equal but one or two of the populations with certain variables will be on equal footing as that of hearing peers.
Didn't you say that there were studies that show black people had more problems than white people? I'm not sure why deafness wouldn't apply in the same way? I feel like I'm missing something.
Deafness is applied similarly to black people but we (deaf people, deaf educators and professionals in the field of deafness view equality differently). Black people as a group are moving toward equality as that of white peers, deaf/hoh people are not even close.
The black community presented evidences of how such laws are damaging to them as a person and how it makes them feel inferior to white people. As a result of such findings, the government slowly eliminated Jim Crow laws and Separate but Equal doctrine was overturned. The U.S. had to enact Civil Rights Act 10 years later because white people refuse to treat blacks equally. Black people have one common goal….to be treated equally in all aspects of life. They worked together to reach that goal. They have black leaders, they have black role models everywhere and they participated in decision making that affect them as a whole.
Where are deaf leaders? Where are deaf role models? Deaf are not part of the decision making process. Who really are making decisions for deaf people? Deaf/HOH people have been told many different ways to be “accepted or part of the society”. Learn ASL, speaking, listening, SEE, PSE and so forth. They are taught using variety of curriculum (auditory based, signing based, speaking/signing). They are told to wear hearing aids, Cis, FM system and so forth. Parents are told to start signing, don’t sign, start auditory training and so forth. Parents are told that your deaf/hoh child will not reach this milestone, will not succeed, will succeed, will go college, will not go college and so forth.. As a result of the hodgepodge of educational philosophies, communication modes, and outcomes, we created one huge mess of divisions and camps within the deaf/hoh community. It is even evident in AD threads. “A house divided against itself cannot stand” (Lincoln) is the reason why deaf/hoh will never attain equality and QOL.
It is silly that we know that the majority of deaf/hoh still read and write in the range of 3rd to 6th grade. Don’t tell me it is because English is an auditory based because we also know that quite a few (even some profoundly deaf) read and write just like their hearing peers. Something is wrong, period.
A full scale study of different populations with same variables to find out what works, what does not work and start teaching the deaf/hoh to read and write like their hearing peers, to be functionally equivalent to their hearing peers and participate in all aspects of society like their hearing peers.
