Deaf Like Me

Tom and Louise register Lynn in the Jane Brooks School for the Deaf, a school that offers an oral education to young deaf children. They do not accept students who use “manual language” or who have any other kind of disability. Tom and Louise tour the school and meet Carolyn Graves, a profoundly deaf teacher. They are surprised at how well she speaks. Tom and Louise observe some classes of older children and are perturbed that many of the older students still cannot talk or talk with immense difficulty and imprecision. Tom feels overwhelmed and starts to see the true scale of their challenge with Lynn. The John Tracy courses had advised them to “​[j]ust keep pouring the words into [Lynn] and sooner or later, they will all come back to you” (152). Tom starts to realize that this is not necessarily true; Lynn still has to learn how to make words, and she will probably not speak with the same clarity that hearing people do. 

Lynn attends the Jane Brooks preschool two days a week, but at first does not understand why Louise keeps leaving her there. She cries until she is exhausted and cannot participate in the class activities. Louise sits in on the class until Lynn becomes more comfortable. One day, Tom observes the class. He watches Lynn take part in speech therapy and is happy to see her make some sounds. The teacher assures Tom that Lynn does well at lip reading and will succeed in school. Lynn is eventually able to recognize over 200 words. One day, Lynn surprises them all by saying Bruce’s name out loud.

The family moves to Los Angeles. Lynn attends a new school that she gets to by bus. She has trouble understanding which days of the week the school bus will come and waits by the curb one Saturday morning. Tom and Louise realize that they have no way to tell her what the weekend is. For several weekends, Lynn waits outside for the bus, only to be disappointed. Tom and Louise show her a calendar and mark the days of the week that she goes to school. Eventually, she begins to understand. There are many things that are difficult to explain to Lynn. Tom and Louise try to show her where it is safe for her to play outside but one day, while riding her tricycle, Lynn is almost hit by a car that she cannot hear coming toward her. When Tom’s father has a heart attack and is hospitalized, they cannot explain to Lynn where he is or what happened to him.

Louise and Tom become worried about Lynn and her fellow classmates’ behavior. The teacher cannot discipline them the way she might discipline hearing students, and many of the children, including Lynn, have problems sharing or taking turns in class. Tom recognizes that there are many things that young children need to be able to communicate to others; without speech, it seems nearly impossible. Lynn becomes more and more frustrated and begins to have “communication meltdowns” when she is not understood. These meltdowns start happening more frequently, much to Tom and Louise’s distress. They struggle to decipher what Lynn wants, and Louise worries that Lynn will never talk. At a parent-teacher meeting, other parents voice similar concerns. The teacher, Mrs. Monroe, tries to assure the parents that their children will talk “Sooner or later, if [they] maintain a good oral environment” (174). Tom wishes that they could get more specific answers but resolves to keep hoping for the best.

Tom attends a lecture by a psychologist on “How to Tell Your Deaf Child a Story” (175). Recently, Lynn has begun to have trouble sleeping. Tom asks about this and learns that many other parents have similar problems. The psychologist does not give any useful advice, but Tom is grateful to know that Lynn’s troubles are not unique. After a lot of work with a speech therapist, Lynn starts to be able to make “m” sounds. Tom gets her to recognize a few spoken words with her hearing aids on. He knows that teaching Lynn to speak is a huge amount of work but believes that “the oral approach offer[s] the only adequate solution” (183).

Tom and Louise are encouraged by stories in the Volta Review of deaf adults who can speak. Tom reads an article about a voice teacher who taught deaf students to speak by helping them to feel vibrations in the chest instead of the throat. He tries this technique with Lynn and she pronounces the word “blue” almost perfectly. He and Louise use this technique repeatedly with Lynn, with some success. To their dismay, a few days later, Lynn regresses. When prompted to speak, she makes “animal-like noises” (187). She gradually stops growling, and her teacher sends home a positive report about her progress. Tom gets a job in Sacramento.

Lynn gets very sick with meningitis. The doctors have to do a spinal tap to diagnose her, and they make Tom and Louise wait outside while they perform the procedure. They are distressed not to be with Lynn and wish they could explain to her what is happening. Lynn is hospitalized. Her parents take turns staying by her side in the hospital so that she is never alone. While visiting Lynn, Tom sees a group of Deaf people using ASL and wonders if they could talk to Lynn and explain to her what is happening. He does not approach them, assuming that they cannot lip read. Lynn starts to improve. The doctors perform another spinal tap, which comes back clear. Lynn is able to go home, but she is still weak. A few weeks later, the Spradleys go hiking with some friends. Lynn watches Bruce and his friends laugh and sing. She mimics their laughs and yells Bruce’s name as loud as she can.