Arizona expo illuminates deaf culture

From The Daily Courier in Arizona:

PRESCOTT, Ariz. - Max, a 3-year-old yellow Labrador retriever, sat quietly at Janie Lamb's feet Thursday at Yavapai College. Lamb, 72, is nearly deaf, and Max is her "hearing dog."

"He warns me if people come up behind me in the grocery store, and nudges me at crosswalks when he hears car engines coming," Lamb said. "He also wakes me up if he hears the smoke alarm go off at night."

Lamb and about 60 other visitors attended a "Deaf and Hard of Hearing Awareness Expo" at Yavapai College to learn about community resources, do some social networking and learn some sign language.

Not everyone who attended is deaf. Kaci Jones-Overs, 20, is a YC student studying to become an English teacher for deaf students. She started learning sign language as a performing arts student at her California high school.

"We were required to learn a second language, and I took sign," she said. "I just fell in love with the language, the style and the deaf culture."

Deaf or hard-of-hearing people do indeed have their own culture and unique customs, guest speaker Dr. Nanette Bowles (pictured) explained.

For example, an etiquette exists to follow when a "hearing" person talks to a deaf person through an interpreter.

"Don't look at the interpreter when you are talking. Look at the other person," she said. "And if you need to walk between two deaf people who are signing each other and you can't go around them, just walk between them," she said. "Don't stoop or duck when you pass between them. Deaf people do not consider it rude."

It takes years of training and practice to become fluent in sign language, Jones-Overs said.

"I've been doing it for four years and I'm not anywhere near fluent," she said.

Novice lip-readers tend to misread words, which leads to some unusual sentence structures, Bowles said. She mouthed some words to the audience and asked the audience what she said.

When she mouthed "maybe," most responders thought she said "baby." "Olive juice" became "Oliver Twist."

Signing also has some pitfalls in interpretation. Some signs could be used for several different words, and some words have several different signs.

"The sign for the letter 't' is also the sign for the bathroom," Bowles said.

Some signs are unique to certain regions, similar to the differences between Southern or Northern accents, she explained.

Although Jones-Overs is not deaf, she is fascinated by the deaf culture.

"There are a lot of different social rules in the deaf culture," she said. For instance, deaf people almost always hug each other after being introduced the first time.

"And you know how people have this space bubble around them and stand a certain distance away? Deaf people get right up on each other without giving it a second thought," Jones-Overs said.

Although Yavapai County does not have a large deaf community, such as those in Flagstaff and Phoenix, many communities offer resources for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. The Internet lists dating websites for deaf singles.

New Horizons Independent Living Center in Prescott Valley has the latest technology in deaf communications: a videophone. Gail Kenney, community work incentives coordinator, told the audience that New Horizons lets deaf people use the videophone for free.

"I'll tell you another thing that is great about signing," Bowles said. "You can talk and eat at the same time without being rude."