CHI - NY - SF






Senior thesis 
I Hear You           
a Journey of Hearing Loss

Script taken from 
Shouting Won’t Help by Katherine Bouton


Script
Today the term deaf is politically incorrect for someone like me.
But I like the word deaf.
It’s blunt, it’s sassy
It’s a way to talk back to your handicap.

It was only when I lost my hearing
that I became aware of How important hearing is
In establishing one’s sense of place.

People with moderate to severe loss can’t hear if they can’t see the speaker face to face.
They can’t hear in a group
They can’t hear in an airport terminal or on a noisy street.


I hear voices, but I don’t always hear words. Speech is visual. I read lips, I respond to gestures and body language.
My mind supplies the words I don’t get - or sometimes it doesn’t

What do you hear when there’s nothing at all to hear?
…it’s … noisy.
The brain creates noise to fill the silence, and we hear this as tinnitus.


Perhaps only someone with profound deafness can achieve this level of silence, so paradoxically loud.




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