26 COUNSELING WITH DEAF PEOPLE in displaying their abilities. Moreover, when in employment, they may not be able to cope initially with interrelationships without having understanding and dynamic supervision. The many who have been placed in appropriate competitive jobs and guided to a state of satisfaction and performance that reflects their innate abilities are money-makers whom employers are glad to have. Others whose adjustment problems do not yield to available services may find job satisfaction and a measure of independence in sheltered employment. The third flaw in this occupational picture concerns what some writers have termed the second industrial revolution. This revolution has resulted from the rapid technological advances, commonly referred to as automation, which have occurred during the past two decades and which will continue on an accelerated level. Although automation threatens everyone to some degree, it poses some very special problems for the handicapped person in the labor force. This is because handicapped workers, particularly deaf persons, tend to be more heavily concentrated in the occupations where automation is making its greatest inroads (Tully and Vernon, 1965). As recently as 1959, a survey of over 10,000 deaf workers revealed that 75 percent of the men were engaged in skilled and semiskilled manual occupations. This percentage is almost twice as high as that for all workers. Furthermore, over half of all deaf workers interviewed were employed in manufacturing, in contrast to 25 percent of the total population (Lunde and Bigman, 1959). When one considers that the occupations in which deaf persons have been engaged are the very ones which are now being the most rapidly automated, the severity of the problem comes into focus. At the present time, despite the initiation and implementation of a handful of regional post-secondary training centers, vocational training opportunities for deaf adolescents and adults are extremely limited. Vocational and technical schools for the hearing may refuse to accept deaf students because of their lack of communication. On-the-job training is too seldom satisfactory. Another serious ramification of the technological era is that many new jobs require excellent communication skills or a high level of formal education. In other words, recent changes in the world of work have resulted in a decrease in the types of jobs in which deaf people historically have been successful and an increase in occupations that emphasize communication skills and formal education where deafness is most handicapping. Virtually all the industrial and occupational trends foreseeable for the immediate and far future underscore the need for increased training opportunities and guidance for all deaf persons. The sparsity of effective SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL Problems of Deaf People 27 rehabilitation and vocational counseling resources for deaf persons is a condition that must be rectified. An important ancillary service in the education of deaf youngsters is the school counseling program that would prepare them to enter the work force. As regards the deaf adult who is displaced or affected in any way by automation, the need is for intensive and extensive vocational counseling with vocational readjustment as the goal. Public Service Very few public services have staff who are able to communicate effectively with deaf applicants. Underservice is the inevitable consequence. Much more often than not, the deaf applicant for employment, welfare, health, or other public services feels that he has received only superficial consideration when the interview has been a communication contest. The interviewer who does not use the sign language and who is reluctant to write or who writes illegibly or at too high a vocabulary level is discouraging. Information about such an event travels rapidly in the tightly knit deaf community with the result that many needy deaf persons may avoid exposure to a similar negative experience. Instead they may gravitate to the nearest school for the deaf or to another situation in which they feel secure because of the availability of expert manual communication. Unfortunately, neither the school nor the other resource is apt to have the capability to provide the needed service. They usually try to refer the deaf person to the appropriate public service if they know about it. As a result, it often leaves the deaf person running futilely from pillar to post seeking assistance, to his utter exasperation. This widespread practice has led to recognition of the need for coordinating and referral centers for deaf people in metropolitan areas so that they can and will receive needed services. Such centers identify the needs, arrange appointments, and provide interpreting at the interview if the circumstances so indicate. Adjustment and counseling services are also a part of these centers. Fewer than a dozen such centers now exist. Many more are in planning stages. A second aspect of underservice of deaf persons by public agencies is the lack of awareness among deaf people about public service to which they are entitled and which they need. A part of this relates to the lack of staff who can communicate with deaf persons. Manual communication skill inevitably involves identity with the deaf community in one way or another. Such a tie by a public-service worker generates knowledge and awareness of what his official role is and that he is a source of help if 79-885 - 72 - pt. 2 - 22 28 COUNSELING WITH DEAF PEOPLE needed. The lack of awareness is also a by-product of existing isolation of deaf persons from the mainstream of community activity. The use of sign language interpreters in public-service situations is valuable and often indispensable. More and more qualified interpreters are becoming available through the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, which is elevating interpreting to professional standards and status. While the emergence of interpreters is a boon for many deaf persons, it is by no means a panacea for all of their communication difficulties. Problems relating to interpreters may arise when a deaf applicant is defensive or resistant. They may also surface when the interview situation is highly confidential. Some deaf persons may be very reluctant to discuss personal problems and needs in the presence of a third party, the interpreter, especially if the interpreter is a family member or close friend. Situations in which a deaf person seeks welfare assistance or psychiatric treatment require highly confidential handling. Paternalism Social handicaps stemming from negative and devaluative attitudes of society toward people with physical disabilities are amply covered by the literature. Needless to say, deaf persons are not spared from such attitudes. A certain syndrome in the attitudinal picture that has an especially wide social psychological implication for deaf people is paternalism. This is the bête noire of all deaf people. It is widespread, persistent, and pernicious. It thrives on the limited abilities of deaf people in speech production, on their low-achievement levels in language, and on their naïvete and lack of sophistication in common interrelationships. It has its roots in the communication problem. These group inadequacies have been the base for general attitudes of doing things for rather than with deaf people; of proceeding with substantive plans on their behalf without involving them in the planning process; of low aspirations for them despite the brilliance of substantial numbers (Vernon and Makowsky, 1969). The limited speech skill and other inadequacies assume overwhelming proportions in the minds and reactions of many people and surprisingly so among educators, families, and other associates of the deaf. They are beset with apologias. They have ceased to think positively, to recognize that the deaf person is far more normal than abnormal and that he has more assets than liabilities. Thus, deaf people have generally not had the opportunities for participation in levels of living appropriate to their native abilities. They have not been able to demonstrate their capacities. Paternal SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF DEAF PEOPLE 29 ism undermines and negates the courageous efforts of deaf people to improve their public image and consequently their employability. Concluding Remarks The deaf person is generally in need of many types of community and counseling services. Deaf people as an underserviced disability group are underscored throughout this chapter. The preventive and treatment procedures are less than adequate for many reasons, especially the persistent, serious shortages in qualified personnel in the helping professions and places for service. True, there is nothing we can do at present about irrevocable hearing loss. But there is no reason why deaf people cannot be helped to live more effectively, thus enhancing their psychological and social integrity. There are three reasons for optimism. The first is that deaf people have demonstrated their receptiveness to counseling and their capacities to benefit from it. Second, within the counseling professions there is an increasing awareness of the counseling needs of deaf people. Finally, important progress is being made with respect to the recruitment and training of professional counselors to work with deaf people of all ages. CHAPTER II Current Status of Counseling with Deaf People McCAY VERNON Improved, yet primitive, best describes the current status of counseling in the field of deafness. Services have expanded over the last decade and new training programs have been developed (Jones, 1970; Sussman, 1970; Switzer and Williams, 1967). Yet, the overwhelming majority of deaf people still go through life totally unable to obtain any form of professional-level counseling. The situation is best understood if examined as it relates to specific realms and periods of the deaf person's life. Counseling for Young Deaf Children's Parents When a family first discovers it has a deaf child the reaction is generally traumatic. Grief, guilt, and overwhelming helplessness are normal responses. These feelings and the accompanying anxiety leave parents desperate for help and highly vulnerable to anyone who offers direction, regardless of how inappropriate it may be. Effective counseling at this crucial time would enable parents to work through their feelings and direct their efforts and anxieties toward constructive endeavors for the deaf child. Unfortunately, instead of professional help toward these ends, parents are generally exposed to the well-intended but often misguided counsel of speech therapists, educators, physicians, and audiologists whose competence and training is often excellent in their respective fields but not in the field of counseling. As a consequence parental needs to deny their child's deafness are reinforced (Grinker, 1969; Mindel, 1968; Vernon, 1969a; Vernon and Mindel, 1971). Hearing aids and speech lessons are offered as the major solutions to the parents' problem in coping with deafness 30 |