47 pages • 1 hour read
Deaf Like Me
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Themes
The Challenges of Oralism
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes ableist language and references to anti-d/Deaf bias.
Oralism was (and still is) a common strategy for educating deaf children by teaching them to lip read and speak verbally instead of teaching them a sign language. The oralist movement has roots in eugenics. Its original goals were to encourage deaf people to marry hearing people to reduce the number of deaf babies being born and to suppress Deaf culture and ASL. In Deaf Like Me, the Spradleys see oralism as the only way forward for several years instead of doing their own research into the Deaf community or learning more from any d/Deaf adults. Oralism focuses exclusively on the promise of an imagined future where deaf children finally learn to lip read and speak after their parents work hard to teach them for many years. This focus on the future means a lack of regard for the challenges of the present: These children might learn to speak one day, so they should avoid learning ASL or even using gestures that could help them communicate now.
Over and over, the Spradleys and other parents ask when their deaf children will start to talk. They never get clear answers, which makes it difficult for them to recognize the potential risks of oralism. If a two-year-old child might start speaking at the age of four, a family might decide that teaching them to lip read is worth the time investment (though ASL would still be a lot faster to learn). But if a child might not have learned to speak before the age of 15, that is a different situation altogether. Without access to all the information, the Spradleys and other parents continue to hope for future success without recognizing the damage they are doing to their children in the present.
The text suggests that oralism sets unrealistic expectations for parents, telling them that their children should somehow be able to obey simple commands even if they cannot understand them. Parents read pro-oralist propaganda in publications like the Volta Review that leads them to believe that oralism is the only viable option. They believe that they should not try to teach their children ASL, as doing so could be damaging in some nebulous, ill-defined way. The fundamental message that oralism sends to deaf children is that they should be forced to adhere to hearing people’s standards instead of having access to learning opportunities that would work for them. Maintaining the status quo of the hearing world is therefore more important than the happiness and real-time communication skills of deaf children.
The Obsession with “Normal”
When Louise is pregnant with Lynn, the Spradleys’ dearest wish is that their new baby will be “normal.” This is so important to them that after Lynn is born, Tom tells everyone that she is “a perfectly normal baby girl” (13). In their minds, “normal” is connected to all sorts of other ideas. A “normal” child is one who is healthy, happy, similar to the rest of the family, able to do everything that other family members can do, and able to live a full life. When they learn that Lynn is deaf, the Spradleys feel betrayed and do everything they can to try to make Lynn fit into their idea of “normal” by using oralism to teach her to lip read and speak. What they fail to recognize is that everything they might hope for in a “normal” child can still apply to Lynn. She is healthy and could certainly be a happy child able to live a full life if she were able to communicate effectively. The Spradleys have such rigid ideas about what counts as “normal” that they are unwilling to make changes to their own life that would accommodate their daughter’s disability and allow her to thrive.
Both Tom and Louise often express extremely ableist viewpoints. They both have strong knee-jerk reactions when they encounter anyone with a disability. Instead of treating these people as individuals and members of their community, they invariably respond with social awkwardness, fear, and even disgust. They see disability as abnormal, refusing to learn about deafness, ASL, or the Deaf community until Lynn is nearly five years old, all because none of those things fit into their idea of the “normal” world. Their negative ideas about disability are so entrenched that they refuse to consider the benefits of ASL even as they long for a common language to share with Lynn. Their vision of a “normal” future for Lynn requires her to learn to speak English and to lip read, essentially taking on the full burden of hiding her deafness from hearing people and not making anyone uncomfortable. She is the one who has to uphold the status quo instead of receiving much-needed support from her parents.
It is only at the end of the book that Tom and Louise realize that speaking ASL is not abnormal—it is a language like any other, and it is an extremely useful form of communication. Furthermore, things that are uncommon or less mainstream are not necessarily bad, unhealthy, or inferior. Deafness is normal; it is one of many variations that inform how people move through the world. ASL, therefore, as a language spoken by hundreds of thousands of Deaf people, is normal.
The Importance of the Deaf Community
For much of Deaf Like Me, Tom and Louise have no real sense that there is any such thing as a Deaf community. They repeatedly fall back on ableist assumptions about d/Deaf people. Those who do not learn to lip read and to speak must, they assume, be wholly isolated from the hearing world and must live difficult, lonely lives. The ideas that hearing people can learn ASL or that interpreters can help translate between ASL and English do not seem to occur to either of them. Even after they learn that Lynn is deaf, neither of them makes any effort to reach out to any d/Deaf adults, or even to other parents with d/Deaf children, so that they can access any kind of Deaf community for Lynn and for themselves. Louise and Tom’s fears of deafness and d/Deaf people push them away from the very resources that could be most helpful for them and for Lynn.
Ironically, Tom and Louise constantly lament their lack of communication tools. They yearn for a common language to use with their daughter, but instead fall back on rudimentary, non-linguistic communication tools like Lynn’s experience book. All of the things that they wish for—a common language, the ability to use gestures instead of words, the opportunity to explain abstract concepts to Lynn and to answer her questions—are things that contact with the Deaf community could certainly provide. Their attitudes reflect common misconceptions about d/Deaf education in the 1960s, many of which persist today. By exploring these misconceptions in detail, the Spradleys hope to reach out to other parents who might be resisting contact with the Deaf community for the same reasons.
At the end of the book, Tom and Louise finally realize that the Deaf community was there all along and that it is able to provide the answers and resources they were seeking. ASL is not a destructive force but an essential tool for communication. Instead of destroying Lynn’s ability to lip read and speak, it actually helps her better recognize words, ask questions, and understand the world around her. For Lynn, the Deaf community allows her to better understand her place in the world. She is surprised and elated when she meets Bill and Bunny White, asking if they are “Deaf like me?” (263). Despite all Tom and Louise’s fears about residential schools where students learn ASL, Lynn insists on attending the Berkeley school because the Deaf community is so important to her, and, as she recounts in the Epilogue, this was a rewarding and enriching experience for her.
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