FoxXy TibBy

well, I just want to start off with thanking everyone for such a great warm welcome when I joined this site, and all the greatest help and informations about my new baby tib, and of course the sweetest deals to all the stock and aftermarket items!!!! wink.gif THANKS EVERYONE!

I just want to return the favor of all the help I've gotten by starting this thread to help those that may have any question about or relating to the deaf world. I believe a good start for this thread would be to explain myself a little bit.

Hello everyone, my real name is Amanda, and I'm from Minnesota, but ....
I'd prefer to use my nickname, which is Foxxy, cuz i just LOVE foxes, (the animals), and be warned, I tend to exaggerate, so please have patience with me lmao.gif
Some of you here already know this, but I'll repeat it again, I am a deaf person, a severe/profound deaf to be exact, with just 85% hearing loss in both ears.
I was born deaf, and I will die deaf lol. Anyways, I may have been the youngest deaf person to recieve a hearing aid (and I say this because I do not know anybody who was born deaf that have recieved them younger than me), the average age for most deaf children to recieve their hearing aid, or cochlear implant, is between 2-3 years old, there are those who got theirs later in their life, it all depends on the decision that their parents make. When i got mine, I was only 2 MONTH old!! This was because my parents knew that i was deaf right away because my oldest brother is a deaf person, he got his pair of hearing aid when he was 3 years old. I learned my first sign when I was 2 years old, and my first oral word when I was 4 or 5. Shortly before I went into preschool, I started to learn both sign language and verbal english. I attended a deaf school in kindergarden and learned most of my signs there, and then my family moved to a town where there is only mainstream school, and all the years I've attended, there was 4-5 other deaf/hh kids beside me. So from grade 1-12, I had a special Deaf/Hard of Hearing teacher who guided me through my learning signs and at the same time, I attended speech therapy to learn how to speak words properly. There is only one problem with my speaking, unless I think to say it properly, I don't always pronounce my 's's right all the time, and you'll find yourself asking me to repeat myself. But don't worry, over time I have been improving, and I just want to share this, for the past 5 or 6 years, I have been trying to master the word "supercalifragilisticesbeallidochus" (from the movie Mary Poppins) without mispronouncing anything (this was a request in one of my speech therapy lol), and just a month ago I finally said it correct!! yay {pat myself on the shoulder} All in all, I developed and am fluent in both Sign Language and English.
When I went into 11th grade, I was forced to take the ASL class (for foreign language credit) and to my benefit, learned a whole deal more about the language itself. ASL is abbreviation for American Sign Language, and there is a huge difference between ASL and regular Sign Language. Sign Language is basically a sign for each word, and for this language, you literally sign every single word, believe me, this is a pain in the a**! ASL is signing with structured sentences, in the same concept as French and Spanish, where the words in the sentence are in different orders from English.
I'll give you an example: a sentence "I am going to the store" this is English, in ASL, you'll be signing, "store, I go." at the same time nod your head, because if you shake your head, that is the message "I am not going to the store" but if you dont move your head, the deaf people will get confused.
ASL is very very hard to achieve and perfect, because there is a huge wide range in this language on every aspect and details. I'll admit I am not perfect in ASL, and neither is many of the deaf people I've known, but that does not mean we use regular Sign Language either. There is a medium between both language, where you don't sign every single word, but you dont mix up your sentence sequence as much as ASL requires as well. This form of language is called Pidgeon Sign Language (I'm not entirely sure if Pidgeon is the correct spelling, but it does sound the same). Of all the deaf people I've met and known in my life, I'd say about 97% of them uses PSL.

Well, I think that just about summed up all that I wanted to say, and if I think of anything else I'd like to add or share, I'll be sure to post it here.

Everyone, if you ever have any question about deaf people, or sign, or even products for the hearing disabled, such as hearing aid, vibrating alarm clock, tty (teletyping phone), and such, please feel free to ask me, or if you are not comfortable asking me here, then feel free to pm me with your question, and I will reply you as soon as I get your pm.

Thanks again everyone, and I look forward to helping you guys out!!!!
luv~FoxXy

majik

Wow, great addition to the forum. I appreciate you sharing your personal experiences with some of us who have never had the opportunity to know/converse with a deaf person.

I'm running out of the house now, but I was able to read part of your story. I'll be back to finish later.

FoxXy TibBy

lol, your sweet thanks

Teflon

hello,

I have lived in the deaf culture for 28yrs ( mom and dad are deaf both were born deaf) This culture is by far my favorite!!

ASL was my first language then English when i started going to school.

Footbstar251

So did you ever want to go the cochlear implant route? When I took ASL, alot of Deaf people told me that if a Deaf person accepted the implant, then they were no longer part of the Deaf community. I think that a lot of Deaf people that actually like to communicate with hearing people use pidgeon sign, because they do not say everything like hearing people do. As you mentioned ASL is more in the form of subject, then action. I think that is why learning english and ASL is hard because they are like polar opposites. So do you still attend speech therapy? And how hard is it to hold a job, or go to an interview or anything like that? Everyone knows that a job is not allowed to discriminate people, but sometimes "they" always find a reason why someone should not be hired.

Ericy321

So you can hear now, just not very well? I mean if I were to talk to you could we have a conversation wihtout me knowing any form of sign? Thanks for adding this. I couldnt imagine being deaf or blind or anything like that. Im sure it takes a lot of courage.

javageek

You answered some of my questions. My church has ASL for the hearing impaired and I always catch myself watching. I always wondering why they were so animated nodding there head and turning it side to side. I didn't realize that was the way they differentiated between I am or I am not, etc.

FoxXy TibBy

well well well its nice knowing there are those here that have deaf in their family, personally, I believe everyone have a little deaf in thier gene pool, cuz I researched my family tree, and we could not find anybody in our family ancenstry who was deaf, and it was odd lol. oh I'd like to add this as well, my parents had a total of three kids, I am the youngest, and the only girl, my oldest brother was born deaf, and my middle brother is hearing, and then there's me, a deaf. There was times we all wondered that if my mom and dad had another child, would the forth one be hearing, (in a pattern) or deaf? lol it was something fun that we wondered about and shared lol

Footbstar251

Oo answer my questions ^^ mad.gif

FoxXy TibBy

actually, when both times me and my oldest brother was born, there was always people who have been in their situation encouraging and few of them wanted to forced my parents to get us cochlear implants. luckily my parents strongly felt that for both me and my brother, we should grow up first, and have all the options out for us to choose for ourselves. Sure we both were handed the hearing aid (h/a) before we can think for ourselves, but we actually had the choice of staying with the h/a or go without, or another option is the cochlear implants (which can also be just cochlear). I have chosen to stay with my h/a's, my boyfriend really thought that i would be better off with the cochlear, and for a while he kept persuading me to get em. After my mom heard about this, she talked to him about the whole cochlear and how it can be a little risky.
now I'll explain how cochlear implants work, this is actually a surgery. What the doctors do is they open up the section right behind your ear, and I can't go into much further details because it's a long process, and I don't know it all, but I do know that during the surgery, they will have to, well I don't really like to put it this way but ..., your eardrum will get ruined during the process (this is probably the greatest downfall of getting a cochlear implant, cuz once you get it done your eardrum is ruined and permanently 100% deaf). All in all, they put technological devices inside your head that connects your ear to the drum, and there is a magnet for hooking up the cochlear hook for whenever you need or want to hear. You must have your cochlear hook off when you get wet (shower, swimming, etc), going to sleep, or playing sport (otherwise it'll fall off if you keep it on).
as for myself, I will never get cochlear implants because I am only 85% deaf, and am content with using the hearing aid to hear things more and better. I actually still can hear with that 15% hearing left, just not much, but if you like talk right in my ear, i'll hear you lol.
and to answer your personal questions, I quit speech therapy in the middle of 10th grade, mainly because I got sick of it, and was pretty much doing fine already, also I started getting dizzy for having to repeat the same words over and over after many years. Right now, I am not in school, I just graduated from high school in '06, and am really enjoying and content what I am doing with my life right now :smile:
and as for jobs, well lets just say there are TONS of jobs opportunity for everyone, literally everyone, they just have to know where to look. As for me, well because I can speak so well for a deaf person, it's not really that hard for me to get a job at a store or factory, which by the way my first job was at Coborn's Inc, in the produce dept. and in my interview I made it very clear about how it works out for me socializing with hearing people, and then moved onto temp work at various factories until I got hired on to a full-time employee at my current job, which is a plastic factory that makes, well you know plastic products lol.
there are jobs that you are required to have hearing and good speaking such as in office businesses and telephone helplines and such.


lol to be clear about this, ever since I got my hearing aid as a baby, I grew up always being able to hear, and yes not quite as well as a regular hearing people, but close enough. even with my h/a, i can't hear cricket, the 's' in words such as sign ~ 's'ign, snake/pipe hissing and I can't even hear "shhh" lol, so for my car, if there's something that doesn't sound right in the motor, sorry i cannot hear that, but my bf takes care of that for me wink.gif another thing to add, my hearing is sensitive to high-pitches, usually i cannot hear it. unfortunately my car alarm is high-pitch, and i cant hear it unless im right next to it, and if i am, it hurts me to hear it so i just turn my h/a off lol.
as for if you talk to me q? well it all depends on the person talking to me, well since your a guy, most guys have low/deep pitch voices so i should understand you just fine, but my bestest friend (who is deaf by the way, and have cochlear too) her voice is the highest voice i've ever heard from a person and i cannot understand a single word she says to me, unless she says one word like "yes" or "no" in response lol, honestly, I don't like her voice (and yes she knows that) so she signs to me whenever she talks to me.
and yes it does take a lot of courage to go out into the world and face all the challenges, which is why I am SO glad I'm done with high school and can finally take the challenges of life. I'm just so glad to have fetish by my side to face the challenges together, so I don't have to be alone laugh.gif (if anybody's wondering, fetish my boyfriend josh, and he is a hearing person, and he does not have much experience in signing, but I am teaching him from time to time)


I am glad to help get that straightend out for you teehee


hey I got something I'd like to share with my fellow friends here, these are links relating to deaf people, the first one is a deaf person signing to a song by a famous singer, I cannot remember her name, but her song is popular as well :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0hAUN4bYVk

second one is a funny show, with the song Ice Ice Baby:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2nX41KvnNY

and this one is a well known joke among the deaf people, I love this joke, makes me laugh everytime:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVW4wtPXU9Y

I hope you guys enjoy them!