As an oralist entering Gallaudet had changed my life after learning ASL and Deaf culture. I owe it to spread the truth about the reality how the Deaf children and I were being deprived from our natural language which is ASL, American Sign Language.
AGB, Alexander Graham Bell was the main reason why majority of the Deaf children were deprived of cognitive language before the age of 8.
To this day, AG Bell Association still carries on AGB’s mission to focus on audio method of learning instead of the natural visual method.
NAD, National Association of the Deaf is supposed to be the leader educating the society about the proper need to develop awareness of Deaf children who must have visual language.
I created an organization called DBC, Deaf Bilingual Coalition and it was the first deaf organization to protest against AG Bell Association in 2007 in Virginia. I was hoping that NAD would also participate in the protest but never did.
DBC also attended EHDI, Early Hearing Detection & Intervention convention in Dallas, Texas. I spoke to a large group about how I finally became a normal person after learning ASL and explained my experience learning the visual language.
My speech was worth a million because many cried after listening to my spoken message.
Still as of today, Deaf leaders say the DBC changed the landscape of EHDI.
We still need to do more and we need much more Deaf reality on TV commercials and documentaries.
I close this with this note:
Deaf Reality:
The concept of hearing people is like a PC computer.
The concept of Deaf people is like a Mac computer.
They both function the same.
But both have different operating software.
Audioand Visual
John F Egbert,
Proudly Member of Gallaudet Class of ‘71