Deaf Like Me

At the meeting, Tom sees a group of Deaf adults using sign language. An interpreter translates English into ASL for them. Mr. Hockett, the principal, starts the meeting by affirming the benefits of the oralist approach. Barbara Simmons reads a statement from the concerned parents, stating that they are not trying to eliminate oralism, but that they want some classes that incorporate ASL. They also do not want their children to be punished for using sign language in class. Other parents raise concerns about sign language being accepted at Starr King School. They worry that being exposed to sign language will prevent their children from learning to speak and lip read. One parent insists that ASL is “not even a language” (216).

Parents take turns sharing their stories, mostly defending oralism. Only one parent shares her support for manualism, and Tom wonders if the manualist argument is so weak that no one can defend it. Finally, a Deaf adult shares his opinion. He says his hearing aid does not help him, and he only wears it so that people speak slower when they talk to him, which helps him lip read some of what they say. He would prefer to communicate using ASL. He reveals that he speaks well because he was not born deaf. Most children who are born deaf will never speak like he does. The man defends sign language, arguing that it is a complex language, like English, and that deaf students need to learn sign language so they can get a proper education. He condemns parents for letting their children grow up without any means of communication. 

Tom is deeply moved by the man’s speech. Tom no longer believes the article he read discrediting sign language; he has seen people using it to communicate and can now see that it allows Deaf people to participate in society. None of the teachers at Starr King know sign language, and so they are incapable of communicating with Deaf people in their own language. He himself does not know any d/Deaf adults and knows nothing about what their lives are like. At the end of the meeting, he talks to Barbara Simmons and expresses interest in sign language. Barbara invites him to her house to meet more Deaf adults. Tom tells Louise what he learned at the meeting. The two of them remember a d/Deaf man Louise once met in a supermarket who communicated by writing notes and who asked Louise for money. The experience unsettled her. Despite their uncertainty, Louise and Tom decide to go to Barbara’s house to learn more.

The Spradleys visit Barbara and Mike Simmons at their home. Also present are Jim and Alice Hudson, a Deaf couple who primarily speak ASL but also lip read and speak English. Jim was the man who gave the speech in favor of ASL at the meeting. Barbara and Mike introduce the Spradleys to their daughter, Diane, who is around Lynn’s age and is also Deaf; she uses ASL. Tom feels uncomfortable trying to communicate with Jim and Alice, and they struggle to understand him just by lip reading. When Barbara interprets, communication gets a lot easier, and Tom starts to realize how useful ASL is. When the others sign without speaking, Tom feels alienated and recognizes that this must be how Lynn feels all the time. In a moment of sudden understanding, Tom recognizes that it is people’s lack of understanding of ASL that isolates Deaf people, not their deafness. 

Jim and Alice encourage Tom and Louise to learn ASL as soon as possible. Barbara and Mike also used an oralist approach with Diane until she was three, but then realized that their communication efforts were fruitless. Diane demonstrates her ability to communicate very abstractly in ASL, compared to Lynn’s extremely limited ability to express herself. Jim points out that with ASL, Lynn could communicate complex ideas to her parents. Tom wonders why nobody explained the benefits of ASL to him before now. Before the Spradleys leave, the other adults teach them a few signs, including “thank you” and “I love you.” At home, Tom and Louise struggle to learn the ASL alphabet. They read some literature debunking oralism and explaining how damaging it is for children to experience language deprivation. They realize that the Volta Review is careful to include only those very rare stories of deaf adults who have learned to speak and lip read fluently. Both of them stay up well into the night practicing the signs they have learned. They decide to start signing to Lynn the following day.

The next morning, Louise and Tom sign “I love you” to Lynn for the first time. Lynn is confused. They use the few signs that they have learned to say a simple prayer at dinner: “Thank you—food” (245). That night, as Louise is putting Lynn to bed, Lynn signs “love you” back to her mother. Bruce learns the ASL alphabet and starts helping his parents sign to Lynn, even inventing a sign name for himself. After a few repetitions, Lynn makes the connection between the signs and the names of her family members; the revelation is enormous for her. She is particularly delighted to learn her own name; Tom realizes that she never knew it before now.

Lynn soon starts asking for the names of all the objects around her, and her parents struggle to keep up with her questions as they still know very few signs. Tom finds it incredible when Lynn can ask for cookies and milk after school instead of him being forced to rely on guesswork. The whole family starts taking ASL classes, and Bruce proves especially adept at picking up new signs that he then teaches to his family. Tom and Louise realize that they were trying to force their child to take on the whole burden of learning to communicate when they could have been learning themselves. They had taught Lynn that the form of communication that was most natural to her was unacceptable and wrong. Now, whenever Lynn gets left out of a spoken conversation, she insists that everyone sign so that she understands. 

At school, Lynn is forced to sit on her hands when she uses ASL. This enrages her parents, who have noticed that Lynn’s ability to lip read has improved dramatically now that she can clarify the meaning of words with signs. Soon, the school starts to accept ASL, which makes Lynn’s education much more productive. Lynn’s linguistic abilities steadily increase, and she starts to use more complex grammar. The Spradleys befriend Bill and Bunny White, a Deaf couple who form a close bond with Lynn and help her learn more ASL. Lynn is delighted to meet other people who are Deaf like her. The oralist philosophy advised against the Spradleys discussing Deafness with Lynn, but they find that helping her see that it is not bad to be Deaf is a much healthier approach.

In February of 1974, Tom, Louise, Bruce, and Lynn take an airplane home from Los Angeles. Lynn is eight years old. The whole family can now sign, allowing Louise to ask Lynn if she is afraid of flying (she is not). Out of the window, the family sees the cemetery where they have just attended Tom’s mother’s funeral. Once the family started to learn ASL, she did, too, even though her arthritis made signing painful. Lynn asks if her grandmother will be dead forever, why she died, and (when Tom says she is now with God) whether God can sign. ASL makes it possible for her to ask and receive answers to all kinds of abstract questions. Both children also use ASL to ask more practical questions about their journey home, the name of their aircraft, what turbulence is, and whether they will go to school tomorrow. Lynn now considers Bunny White to be her grandmother; the families remain close.

In August of 1975, the Spradleys go camping and meet Bunny and Bill at a casino on their way home. There, they meet two young boys who are d/Deaf. One of them, Mark, a boy around a year older than Lynn, cannot sign, speak, or lip read. He is wearing hearing aids. It is impossible for Lynn and her family to communicate with him, which clearly distresses him. The other boy, who is Bruce’s age, uses ASL. His name is John. Both John’s parents and Mark’s parents join the group. John’s parents chose to send him to a residential school and have not bothered to learn ASL themselves, making it harder for John to communicate with them. The younger boy’s parents have followed the oralist philosophy. Tom suggests that they learn ASL and explains how signing has helped his own family. They are hesitant, but they seem interested in what Tom has to say. As they leave, Lynn is thoughtful as she recognizes that she was originally educated just like Mark.

In a brief Epilogue, a 19-year-old Lynn reflects on her own experiences of growing up d/Deaf and having her father and uncle write Deaf Like Me. They started writing it when she was seven, and she was 11 when the text was completed. When she was 12, Lynn decided that she wanted to attend the California School for the Deaf, Berkeley. Her parents were reluctant to send her to a boarding school, but she was desperate to be around other Deaf children and teachers with whom she could communicate easily in ASL. Deaf Like Me was published shortly after Lynn arrived at Berkeley, and it had a big impact on many of her classmates. Lynn was surprised to hear about some of the anecdotes from her childhood that she could not remember. She is grateful to her parents for learning ASL. Now, Lynn is about to graduate from Berkeley and is hoping to get a job. Deaf Like Me remains a powerful story of her early years that also helps her cope with the death of her uncle, the book’s co-author.