Deaf teens relate to characters in 'Switched at Birth'

Olivia Stein, a 17-year-old student at California School for the Deaf in Fremont, can probably count on one hand how many times she has seen someone like herself beaming from a television screen writes Chuck Barney for Contra Costa Times (03/01/12).

It's no wonder, then, that she has become hooked on "Switched at Birth," a feel-good family drama pegged, in part, to multiple deaf characters who have brought some prime-time exposure to an underrepresented segment of society.

"It allows us to be more involved. We can relate. We're finally seeing people like us," she said through a Sign Language Interpreter. "And it's showing the world that deaf people are cool. We rock."

"Switched at Birth" debuted on ABC Family last summer with a sensationalistic premise: A couple of teen girls -- one of whom is deaf -- discover that, due to a hospital error, they wound up with the wrong parents. Now their families, from two different worlds, are struggling to get to know each other.

The show, which resumes its first season on Tuesday, became an instant ratings hit for ABC Family. Moreover, it sparked wide interest among the deaf community for its frank and respectful depiction of people with hearing loss.

The teen girl who is deaf, Daphne Vasquez, is played by Katie Leclerc, who in real life has Meniere's disease, a disorder of the inner ear that can affect hearing and balance. Also among the cast are deaf actors Sean Berdy and Marlee Matlin. The series was created by Lizzy Weiss, who took courses in American Sign Language (ASL) while attending Duke University.

"Switched at Birth" doesn't focus solely on deafness -- the soapy twists and turns cover a wide terrain. But it does explore several pertinent deaf issues, including communication and societal barriers, speech therapy and the debate over cochlear implants. It also makes extensive use of sign language, subtitles and something very rare in this era of pop-cultural clatter: Moments of utter silence.

Anna Schumacher, a Berkeley native who served as an on-set interpreter for "Switched at Birth," calls the show an important step forward because it doesn't isolate its deaf characters "into a novelty category" or portray them as disabled.

"While Daphne's life is by no means easy, because of many variables, she is seen as just as bright, capable, insightful and full as any teenager," she said. "Yet she experiences the world in a different way and has a wonderful language at her fingertips."

Leclerc, 25, says that the show is dispersing an important message.

"People tend to be afraid of what they're unfamiliar with, so communicating (with the deaf) can be somewhat intimidating," she said. "If we can come into people's homes and show that it's not that hard -- and that we all have similar struggles -- it's a good thing."

The actress, who is enjoying her first breakout role in a 10-year career, says that the feedback she has received from viewers is especially gratifying.

"I've heard from people who tell me they now have a better understanding of a deaf relative," she said. "Others have said they're changing their college major to sign language because they want to be an interpreter. That's pretty cool."

Several teen students interviewed through interpreters at the school for the deaf in Fremont find "Switched at Birth" to be pretty cool, too. Though they have quibbles with the show -- they'd prefer it, for example, if Leclerc was more fluent in signing and if her character had more interaction with other deaf kids -- they're drawn to it because it reflects pieces of their world.

Gurpreet Rai, 20, especially admires a plot line in which Daphne balked when her wealthy biological parents pushed to move her from an all-deaf school to a mainstream private school. In an emotionally powerful scene, the character recalled a previous stint at a "hearing" school, where she was treated like an outcast.

"That part of the show applies to my experience," Rai recalled. "I went to five hearing schools in Hayward, and it was a constant struggle. I felt lost -- like I had no future for myself."

Stein can also relate.

"Life was hard (at a mainstream school). I never had a friend. It was awkward," she said. "I finally went to my parents and told them, 'I'm done. I need a change, now.' "

Alexandria Brinkley-Green, 18, gets a kick out of the fact that Daphne is a basketball player, just like her. And she likes the way the show captures the ups and downs of romantic relationships between the deaf and hearing.

"What is the point of dating a hearing person if that person does not know sign language?" she said. "However, if that person was fluent in ASL, I'm open to the idea."

Several students applaud the show's casting of Berdy, a charismatic 18-year-old actor who attended CSD's sister school in Riverside. To them, he's a "cool role model." They even like the way he signs.

"We can pick up on his irony -- something hearing people can't," said Conrad Baer, 17.

But Berdy's casting also represents a sign of hope, according to Brinkley-Green.

"Some deaf people want to be actors, too," she says. "Maybe this will open a few doors to new possibilities."

As Greece slashes costs, the deaf are left unaided

Evanthia Plakoura's life recently became a lot more complicated reports CBS News (16/12/11).

Conversations with her boss switched to email only. Visits to the doctor require additional planning. She feels helpless in Greece's bureaucratic labyrinth.
"It's like someone flicked a switch and turned off your voice," said Plakoura, a deaf woman who works at the Education Ministry.

Plakoura joined some 2,000 disabled demonstrators at a rally in central Athens this week to protest sweeping benefit cuts imposed in Greece's economic crisis that have deprived her of sign-language translation.

In August, a five-year-old program providing deaf people with interpreters was suspended after the government abruptly cut its funding to less than half. Overnight, 15,000 deaf people around Greece were left without help to report a crime to the police, rent a house or go to a job interview.

Funding cuts have opened up gaps across welfare services, with slashed services and longer waiting times for vulnerable groups including the blind, recovering organ-transplant patients, autistic children, and paraplegics in need of physiotherapy.

"This program is very important to us. It's our bridge to the outside world and it's vital for our education," Plakoura said in sign language, her speech relayed by one of the very translators whose help is being cut off.

"People have gone back to writing things down, or taking a relative, but it's not the same thing," she said. "It makes things very difficult for us, and especially for elderly deaf people."

The axed program is the latest casualty of Greece's draconian austerity measures that have battered social services as demand for help by the recession-hit public increases.

Independent welfare programs that rely on grants from the state offer a tempting target to a government fighting the threat of bankruptcy. Unlike state-run programs, which enjoy strong legal protections, the government can simply turn off the money taps.

As a result, independent programs to assist the disabled, the elderly, psychiatric patients and recovering drug users have all suffered steep cuts, occasionally with dramatic consequences.

An alarming rise in HIV infections in 2011 has been blamed in part on problems with needle exchange programs for drug users. Between January and October this year, 190 new infections of the deadly virus were reported among intravenous drug users, compared with 14 in the first 10 months in 2010, according to the Health Ministry.

Groups representing the disabled and other vulnerable Greeks have held several demonstrations outside the Finance Ministry, on Athens' main Syntagma Square, but getting attention is difficult in a city where between four and five protests are held every day.

At his suburban headquarters, Costas Gargalis, who heads the National Association of the Deaf in Greece, is struggling to keep his 60-member network of interpreters together, hoping to restart the program sometime next year.

"Since the program was suspended, it's been really chaotic," he said. "Some people can pay for interpreters on occasion, but others have simply postponed their tasks forever."

Gargalis, who is deaf, spends his working day in hectic silence: swiftly thumbing text messages on his cell phone, poring over fax requests from around Greece, and making video calls over the Internet.

His interpreters program started with an annual state grant of euro250,000 ($333,200) in 2006; that was steadily reduced to euro180,000 ($240,000) this year, before being suddenly slashed to euro80,000 ($106,600) in August.

"We were immediately over-budget and had to suspend the program. And even then, interpreters were left unpaid for two months of work," said Gargalis.

At previous funding levels, deaf people were offered 25 hours a year with interpreters. If the program is restarted next year, they will receive no more than 10 hours, Gargalis said.

"The amount of money we are asking for is laughable," he said, speaking through an interpreter. "This is a matter of survival for us."

Interpreters for the deaf need six years of training to get their license, and are paid below-minimum wage to crisscross Greek cities daily and provide help communicating.

"People generally become interpreters because they are interested in the subject," registered interpreter Costas Christodoulakos said.

"Now they are obliged to look for other work and take on other commitments, often unrelated to their interpreting jobs," he said. "What else can they do?"

Greece's debt-shackled economy has been kept alive by international rescue loans for the past 19 months, and creditors are pressing for more aggressive spending cuts, as the Socialist government continues to miss deficit-cutting targets and heads into a fourth year of recession in 2012.

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos promised this week to submit protesters' demands to the country's new prime minister, and invite disabled groups to join negotiations on a major new tax code due to take effect next year.

Health care is facing major cuts this year — down from euro7 billion originally planned to euro5.6 billion ($9.4 billion to $7.5 billion), excluding state insurance subsidies.

Since the debt crisis started in late 2009, store closures have exceeded 20 percent in some commercial parts of Athens, while more than 275,000 people have lost their jobs nationwide, the vast majority in the private sector, pushing the unemployment rate to more than 16 percent.

"The unemployment rate among disabled people is normally more than double the national average ... so there is an urgent need for disabled people to be protected (from the cuts)," Yiannis Vardakastanis, leader of the National Confederation of Disabled People, said in an interview.

"The effects of the initial (government spending) cuts were not immediately obvious. But the cuts being made now have brought parts of the care system to a state of near-collapse."

Deaf MP pushing for tech upgrade

Mojo Mathers takes her place in Parliament as New Zealand's first profoundly deaf MP writes Adam Bennett for New Zealand Herald (15/12/11).

She will be relying on the "far from ideal" solution of electronic note taking to follow proceedings but Ms Mathers hopes a more advanced "cap relay" service providing near real time captioning for Parliamentary TV, which would also allow the other 700,000 hearing impaired New Zealanders to follow Parliament better, will be provided before long.

Ms Mathers became profoundly deaf after being starved of oxygen at birth, but has led an active public life as a candidate for the Greens in three elections.

Named for the song Got My Mojo Working by bluesman Muddy Waters, Ms Mathers became the Greens' 14th MP after special votes were counted last weekend.

Since arriving at Parliament for caucus meetings and induction, she has been in discussions with the Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk about arrangements to allow her to participate fully in the House.

"In the short term, what's immediately available is electronic note taking," she told the Herald yesterday. It will not be ideal because there's a bit of a time delay and it's not verbatim."

That initial arrangement means Ms Mathers will have a screen showing Parliament TV, enabling her to lip read when the House is being addressed by an MP sitting behind her. At the same time she will receive a text feed on her iPad provided by a notetaker watching proceedings on a video feed.

"My goal is ultimately captioning, because that then becomes a service for all 700,000 hearing-impaired New Zealanders."

She said that could be achieved via a "cap relay" service which is an advanced form of the telephone relay service now available to enable the hearing and speech-impaired to use the telephone.

The current service allows hearing impaired users to receive the other side of a telephone conversation via text, typed out by a relay assistant who listens in.

Ms Mathers said that in a cap relay service, the relay assistant would speak the response into voice recognition software to convert it into text, giving a faster service and therefore an easier conversation.

At present insufficient people have signed up for the service for it to be set up in New Zealand. But Ms Mathers hopes that will happen soon, and that the same technology can be used to provide real time captions on Parliament TV.

Ms Mathers said she had encountered few problems during public meetings when she campaigned for the Greens as other candidates were usually experienced in public speaking "therefore articulate in a way that's easy for me to lip read. At those meetings she was accompanied by a note taker who wrote down questions from the floor.

Deaf burglar failed to hear victim approaching

A PROLIFIC deaf burglar was caught because he didn’t hear his victim approaching as he ransacked a house reports the Leyton Guardian (15/12/11).

Marc Kaye, 45, of Radlix Road, Leyton, broke into the first floor of a house in Kew, Richmond, in June this year. But he did not realise one of the occupants, Martin Dean, 41, was upstairs at the time.

On hearing a disturbance, Mr Dean went to investigate and found Kaye in a ground floor bedroom.

Kaye fled when he spotted Mr Dean, who tried to stop him but the thief managed to escape through a window with a stash of jewellery.

When being interviewed by Detective Constable Gary Smith, Mr Dean described the burglar as bald and about 45 years old. He also mentioned his surprise that Kaye had not heard him approaching.

Det Cons Smith then recalled arresting a bald and profoundly deaf man for burglary in 2008 and traced Kaye through police records.

He stood trial at Kingston Crown Court earlier this month after being picked out by Mr Dean from an identity parade.

Kaye initially pleaded not guilty but changed his plea during the trial. He was sentenced to five years in prison for one count of burglary.

Following the sentencing Det Cons Smith said: "Taking into account Kaye's prolific history of burglary and that within weeks of his release from prison he broke into this house, it was highly likely that he would have gone on to commit many more break-ins if we hadn't caught him. “He was a menace to the public and the sentence given to him reflects this".

"Mr Dean deserves praise for his bravery in confronting Kaye and successfully identifying him in the ID parade. It is also to his credit that he noted the importance of the suspect having not heard him coming, from which I was able to make the connection to Kaye".

Toddlers banned from making 'rude' star sign

Toddlers singing along to a nursery rhyme have been banned from making a "star" sign in case the "rude" gesture offends deaf people reports The Telegraph (16/12/11).

The children were making the sign with their hands to indicate a twinkling star as they sang along to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, when staff asked them to use a different gesture - prompting a furious response from one parent.

The disgruntled mother said: "It seems a little politically correct. These are innocent little children just making a sign to show a star. No-one would give it a second thought. Now every parent may worry their child may be making an offensive gesture when they're singing this song."

A spokeswoman for City of York Council, who are responsible for the Sure Start mother and toddler group in Acomb, York, denied it was a case of political correctness, insisting it was more "a sensible decision taken to prevent deaf children or deaf parents being offended by the use of the gesture".
She added that staff at the Sure Start group had been on a sign language course at which they were advised that the "star" gesture was very similar to the sign used for female genitalia.

The staff used a language programme called Makaton which uses signs and symbols to help people communicate, she said. Makaton is designed to support spoken language by using sign and symbols use with speech in spoken word order.

She said that staff realised it was a sensitive matter and, using their own discretion, had decided to use the accurate hand sign for a star.

The spokeswoman added: "Parents have not been banned from using the other sign and City of York Council does not have a policy over this matter."