Vanilla Deaf. “What the…? Is racism at play here?” was my first reaction, and that of some Hearing friends, as well. At first, my thoughts were that it probably meant White Deaf. Is there such a term as “Chocolate Deaf”? Turns out it isn’t racism, but something else entirely.
I googled it, and came across the blog of a Hearing mother of a young Deaf child who explained that the term was used by Hearing Loss professionals to define Deaf children without developmental issues that prelude language acquisition. In other words, Vanilla Deaf means “clean” or “normal” Deaf. This term isn’t widely used, not even in the Deaf Education field. It is my understanding that this label is a fairly new one.
I had NEVER come across this label until recently. Why didn’t most Deaf professionals, and the Deaf Community know about this? Read on, and we might glean the answer to this question.
Check this link out: http://jdsde.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/9/3/346.pdf Scroll down to the bottom of that page. A professor recommended that teacher-educators require their student-teachers to read this book in their courses. What I found interesting is the rationale this professor used for this recommendation, as well as the department with which this professor is affiliated.
Deaf children are being categorized from an early age as either “Vanilla Deaf” or Deaf-Plus (this term will be discussed separately at a later date) by “hearing loss professionals”, who then encourage the placement of vanilla deaf children in non-signing educational settings. Who are those “hearing loss professionals”? Examples can be found in this link:
http://www.insightcinema.org/hearinglossprofessionals.html
Type “vanilla deaf” in the search box of any of the organization websites, and you’d be surprised at the number of documents that come up. For instance, at Better Hearing Institute, you’d find 47 documents that contain this term!
Out of curiosity, I decided to google “Vanilla Natives”, “Vanilla Aboriginals”, “Vanilla Hispanics”, “Vanilla French”, and “Vanilla Francophone”. Guess what? None of them exists. What I came up with had to do with food or scents. Therefore, NO ethnic minority children had the dubious honour of having the vanilla label attached to them.
What conclusions can we draw from these facts?
Obviously, racism isn’t even on the radar here. The label of “vanilla deaf” is apparently part of the jargon used by “hearing loss” professionals when they discuss young Deaf children without developmental issues that hinder language development. It seems that some Hearing parents of newly diagnosed Deaf children have been exposed to this label while most Deaf educators and the Deaf community remain in the dark.
If this label is used by “hearing loss” professionals and others who adhere to the Listen and Speak ideology to encourage Hearing parents to place their Deaf children in non-signing educational settings, then one could most certainly conclude that audism is very much at play here.
One more thing: the very act of labelling of Deaf children as vanilla deaf (or otherwise) can also be deemed audistic in practice. So, the label of vanilla deaf can be considered an audist label.
What’s your conclusion?
Ben,
Are you taking my comments personally? I am just simply sharing you from my point of view as I never said I am always right. It is based on my experience, both personal and professional, that I am contributing my comments to this blog. I am reflecting what you said which is the opposite and there is nothing wrong with that. I am sorry that you are not finding yourself to express your point of view any further as it was not the intention.
I do see the same things that Barb describes here. On IEP forms north of the 49th, Deaf is considered one of “exceptionalities” mentioned…communicative exceptionality, to be precise. The exceptionalities mentioned are physical, communicative, behaviour,learning to name a few. Each and every Deaf child, including the ones who are hard-of-hearing, in both schools for the deaf, and all schools under school boards.
I received the same puzzled, bewildered looks on my co-workers’ faces when I mentioned the term, too.
Here in Ontario (not sure about other provinces…haven’t had the chance to look that up yet), Deaf education isn’t even a department in the Ministry of Education. That is under the auspices of the Special Education department under the Ministry of Education.
So, it doesn’t matter if a child is labelled Deaf, vanilla Deaf, hard of hearing, etc, they still get IEPs and lumped with the disabled ANYWAY.
So, in order to stop clumping the Deaf with the Disabled, people would have to convince the Ministry of Education to take Deaf Education out under the control of Special Education dept, and assign it its own department. That won’t happen as long as we are seen as disabled (having a communicative exceptionality).
If Deaf education is considered a SEPARATE field from Special education in the government’s eyes, then we will have a better chance of changing the lumping together issue.
Hi all,
I’m back and I read most of the comments here. The word “vanilla deaf” that I learned over the net. They used it in deaf education system where the professionals may have what it was called “New Eugenics Mentality”.
“Biological, psychological, and cultural development, and the condition of one’s health, may never become elements of discrimination.”
Pope Benedict XVI
Agree?
FYI, I’m not catholic, but he’s right
Brance