I happened to walk into the den, when I saw someone gesturing on television. I looked up and saw it was a child- she signed, "Hello, My name is Alana. I was born deaf." I was pleasantly surprised but then what she said then, sunk my stomach. She said that she asked her mother why deaf people don't wear hearing aids. "They don't like how a hearing aid looks on them." She ended it by "I would do anything to hear better." (If I'm wrong in parts of those, please let me know, but I got the whole message.) I may sound I'm "touchy" about this issue, but to say that deaf folks don't wear hearing aids because they are embarrassed to wear hearing aids??!! I was so speechless when I worked it out in my mind and then I got furious. If they had an elderly woman/man saying that, okay, I can handle that because a majority of eldery lose hearing as they get older. A lot of eldery do tell me that they don't like to wear hearing aids because it make them look different. BUT a child that SIGNS ASL says this??!!! I know there are deaf people out there that wear hearing aids and not, but this commerical is very very misleading. It is giving an impression that we are EMBARRASSED to be deaf, hence EMBARRASSED to wear hearing aids.
I grew up in mainstreamed schools, I am very comfortable in both hearing and deaf worlds and I help both communities. I can write and type very well with hearing people as well as sign excellently with deaf people. Before you ask, I stopped wearing hearing aids because I kept getting ear infections frequently and I realized that even with hearing aids, I wasn't able to identify sounds at all. NOTHING about embarrassment. NOTHING about being 'vain.' NOTHING about fear of being identified as a deaf individual!
Or maybe I'm overreacting to the commerical. What do you think?
7 comments:
That is very inaccurate and put a negative light on Deaf people. I am surprised they would use this ad. They should know better because many of their customers are also Deaf!!
If you provide us contact information, we can send them complaints.
Good idea, Mishkazena! I had looked up information on Miracle Ear. Here is what I found:
Miracle-Ear Headquarters
Miracle-Ear, Inc.
5000 Cheshire Lane North
Minneapolis, MN 55446
1-877-268-4264
Fax: (763) 268-4365
I looked for email information but turns out the email address they provides is for information request on hearing aids.
And...hello, no TDD numbers?
That kind of crap is totally insane. I'm going to call them and let them know the kind of trouble they may be in for.
Why don't these big companies do some research before they run ads like this? I mean I'm sure it wasn't their intention to insult anybody, and if they looked into things first they might not have.
And don't they have screeners? I mean, come on! Grow up.
Dennis
Good question, Dennis. I would wonder if if they have screeners and if some of those are deaf as in being aware of the culturally deaf community where ASL is mainly used.
I just saw this commercial a moment ago and said, "man, people are about to p*ssed when they see this!" This is the only place I found online where people were discussing it though. The company definitely needs to hear from us!
I quote this one "EMBARRASSED to be deaf, hence EMBARRASSED to wear hearing aids. " ?
Some are yes because they want to live like (non-df) normal do. You know, as my many experiences, Yes sometimes I remove my hearing aid when in comes of a lot of people surround you like in the bus, train etc, because it's very annoying for me when they look at my hearing aid and probably they talk about you and say "blah blah blah," I feel they look me down, be discouraged.
and for "no", I can't feel myself when I wear hearing aid 'coz the sound go through h.a is not good. not natural. sound like you wearing earphone all the time and i feel like robot.
Just want to share my experience. thanks
Doctors said that the earphones is bad in our health, if the earphones is bad, what about the hearing aid?, huh? They are both non-natural/techies things. Do you think I'm correct? I think so.
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