Interviewing a deaf/blind person

I once covered a deaf head football/track coach at a high school. When I called him, I had to use the TDD system, which was a pain, but it worked. In person, he read lips very well.

One assistant coach warned me while laughing, though, not to say the word "vacuum" to him. The coach thought it was "FU."

 

Back in the 80s, the World Games for the Deaf landed in our circulation area and I was sent to cover it over the summer lull. Although I hated it, there are still some vivid memories. (I didn't big-time it, I went with a good attitude and I took it seriously).
Dealing with the players was fine. They could not have their hearing aids during competition but could for interviews before and after. There were numerous interpreters available via American Sign Language.
But the organization was awful. It was a complete mess trying to get information and results on events. From what I remember, it was the first time ALL the directors of the event were deaf/dumb and it was to prove they could run this thing despite their challenges. But they proved they couldn't, and the woman who was in charge of the whole thing suffered a nervous breakdown before it ended and had to be hospitalized.
One funny thing I remember. I had written about a water polo team winning its semifinal game. The next day, I went to cover the final. I had that day's paper with me and I saw one of the guys I conversed with the day before. I handed him the paper with the photos and story on his team. He started signing to some of the other players in the pool and they all swam over, got out of the pool and grabbed at the paper to see the story. But they were all wet and the paper nearly disintegrated before they could see it.
And the best "quote" I got was from a volleyball player about overcoming their handicap: "The best thing is you can eavesdrop from all the way across the gym."

 

Interviewed a blind person several different times. It was no different than anyone else.

I've interviewed two deaf people. One was a parent of a prep player I was covering and he could read lips remarkably well, although I made a point of talking pretty slowly.

The other one, which was for a feature and was before email was widely used, I would write the questions down and she would write down her answer. She was pretty severely disabled and the interview took about five hours.

 

Never interviewed anyone blind or deaf, but I did interview a teen in a wheelchair who couldn't speak, but could type with two fingers on a keyboard. The boy wrote poetry and had several of his poems published.

It turned out to be a pretty good story, and the mom called me up afterwards to thank me for not treating her son's handicap as a special thing.

 

One of my favorite stories at my old shop was about a pitcher who wasn't legally blind but wasn't that far off. The catcher came up with a new set of signs that were like base-coach signs where he would touch different parts of his body, since the pitcher couldn't see fingers. And this was a college summer-league team, so they were only playing together for a couple of months. It was pretty cool.

 

did a pair of stories about a deaf softball player at one school and deaf tennis coach at another school. learned about them during the winter and took a 7-week sign language class so I could learn to say some very basic things. Shocked the hell out of both of them when I could sign, "Hi, I'm AgatePage and I work for the Podunk Press. It's nice to meet you. How are you today?"

The coach could read lips and spoke pretty well, so that interview was easy. With the player, I sat facing her and her translator (her dad that day) sat behind me and off to the side so she could see me speaking to her, but she used him as backup if she couldn't read my lips. Very cool interview. 2 great stories.

 

Interviewed a deaf track athlete years back...at the time was actually learning sign language, but his ability to read lips was much easier than my fledgling attempt at getting the hand signals right.

Kid went on to compete at Kansas...

 

Interviewed a deaf and blind kid once. He sure played a mean pinball.

(18 replies? SJ is slippin'...)

 

Some pretty inspirational stuff with this thread. Feels good reading these accounts. Thanks, folks.

 

Most states have a school for the deaf and or blind and about once a year the results will get printed as "dead and blind."

If you ever get the chance to do a feature story -- maybe on the football or basketball team or a standout athlete -- you should.

It will open your eyes and make you realize how capable people are despite hardships and disadvantages.

 

Just posted my feature story on the deaf softball player. If you guys would like to check it out, that'd be much appreciated!

Did some of the interview over instant messanger and facebook chat. Have any of you ever done interviews this way in your deaf stories?

 

Sirs, Madames,

Interviewed a couple of blind folks over the years. One guy was president of a company he founded (used by about a quarter of the Fortune 500 and many pro franchises).

Dated a deaf girl in high school ... a stunner. She could lip read so well that people didn't believe she was deaf--one buddy who wasn't in the loop thought she was ignoring him when she had her back to him while he was talking. The world's best sport, she went out dancing with us and pretended to hear the music.

o-<