ADAPT Action Blog
The words of Activists at the ADAPT Action.
Why is the CCA Important for Deaf People?
By Amber Smock
There ARE low-income people in the US who are Deaf and have other disabilities severe enough that they need assistance with activities of daily living (anything from toileting to prompting to remember to take care of living tasks). Some of these folks join us at ADAPT National Actions. The problem is, if a Deaf person with a severe disability requiring personal assistance entered a nursing home, how many nursing homes across the US are prepared to serve someone who signs? You got it---very few. My fear is of Deaf people being unnecessarily placed in institutional settings where they are kept from communicating freely in sign language.
Historically, Deaf people have actually been mistakenly identified as having cognitive or psychiatric disabilities, and then being placed in institutions without understanding what was going on. I myself was mistakenly first diagnosed as having a cognitive disability when I was young, but I was lucky to have parents who took me to another doctor who figured out that I had a severe hearing loss. I grew up oral, but found the Deaf community when I was in my twenties and already involved in disability issues.
I think that being able to have community choice for Deaf people is important because then Deaf people could find personal assistants who could sign or who could be taught to sign. Community choice would ensure that Deaf people could be in charge of our lives, not be dictated to by people who can't or won't sign. You know, one of the first big "horror stories" about institutions was about a place called Willowbrook in New York State---the people were running around naked and not fed and it was really dangerous. Well, there were Deaf people there. So institutionalization and nursing homes are realities for some Deaf people, and we should fight as hard as we can to make sure that Deaf people live lives where we are in control of our communication choices, and that includes having PAs who sign when we need it.
Amber Smock