Communication is key

December 8th, 2008

Last week I attended Earnhill Primary School to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Garvel Deaf Centre.

I thoroughly enjoyed the event, which got me thinking about the challenges deaf people have faced in the past and today.

This area has a long tradition of involvement with deaf education and it was no less than Alexander Graham Bell who helped form the Greenock Articulation School 130 years ago within the old Greenock Academy.

It later moved to Ardgowan Primary and was still based there during my own days at the school.

I was struck even then, more than 45 years ago, in regard to the segration between the deaf and the mainstream pupils, in the playground and the canteen, that thankfully we don’t see today.

My next experience of sign language came in a place I wouldn’t have immediately expected to find it – the shipyards.

With the sheer noise of the machinery, often basic signing was the only way workers could communicate, whether it be to cut a machine off, bring a required tool or to signal time for a much-needed tea break.

The irony of this was that while most people were gaining apprenticeships in the shipyards when they left school, this door in many cases was closed to deaf people because of their percieved disability.

I also have a memory of working with a deaf man who was eventually sacked for taking time off work and being late.

By the time it was discovered six months later he had been battling cancer during those days he was struggling at his work, the man had passed away.

The failure of his employers, his trade unions and even the doctors who diagnosed him too late to understand his problems, cost him his job and later his life.

Back at Garvel, the children acted out a similar, if a little less tragic, story to highlight the problems they face in everyday life.

It told the story of a pupil who had a sore leg but doctors and nurses couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him because of their inability to communicate with him.

It proves that while much progress has been made to include children and adults with hearing difficulties, there are serious consequences if we allow communication to become a barrier.