A common “entry” point for TAFE is either through a course co-ordinator or through the Disability Liaison Officer (DLO). Sometimes, with the best of intentions, either one of these professionals can erect barriers for a deaf person wishing to undertake a course. It can happen because of a number of factors:

• misunderstandings about deafness and how it does or doesn’t limit an individual
• misunderstanding of what is called “the inherent requirements” of the course
• misunderstandings of how assessment can or cannot be modified without impacting on the integrity of the course
• lack of knowledge about devices that may assist a deaf person both during study as well as later in the workplace

Who to Contact

There are a number of organisations that can be approached for assistance and advice when faced with such situations. These include:

• the Disability Liaison Unit at the TAFE (unless the barrier has been created by them)
• ourselves, the Centre of Excellence for Students who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing
• the Victorian Deaf Society (Vicdeaf)
• the Victorian Council of Deaf People (VCOD)
• if it is in relation to an apprentice, a Field Officer within the Office of Training and Tertiary Education (OTTE
• the Disability Discrimination Legal Service
• do a Google search using key words (e.g. “deaf police”)

Barrier

Having a hearing loss creates issues under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and, therefore, a deaf person cannot be trained to work in a particular sector.

Solution

In reality, there are only a few work options that remain ones that deaf people have been unable to “break into”. One would be military service; another difficult, though not impossible area, is police work.

This does not mean, though, that barriers won’t be put up to for a deaf person who wants to work in specific fields. As noted above, this is often because of issues relating to lack of awareness of how the assessment and/or task can be adjusted to gain the same outcome, just in a different way. Some examples of this include:

• A young apprentice in the motor trades was initially told that they could not pass their learning competencies because of their inability to hear whether or not an engine was correctly tuned.  It was pointed out that they could monitor the engine by feeling the vibration and could accurately tune it in this way.
• A deaf person doing studies related to work with the Country Fire Authority was told they could not pass their course, as they were unable to hear emergency evacuation alerts via two-way radio when working at a fire. It was suggested that for ALL workers in such a setting, it was not reliable to use two-way radio because the workers may not hear the evacuation warning. It was recommended that all workers in such settings use a vibrating pager system that had the sole purpose of alerting workers to immediately evacuate the area.

Barrier

Long term held beliefs about the inherent requirements of a particular course or profession that create outcomes with which a deaf person is unable to comply because of their hearing loss, thus sustaining the myth that deaf people cannot study or work in a particular area.

Solution

Often such beliefs are strongly entrenched and difficult to break. Nonetheless, it is possible to argue that there is more than one legitimate way to arrive at and achieve a learning outcome.  Sometimes it is simply a matter of providing information about the alternative. Often though, it is a more challenging task than that and may require the intervention of a third party who can provide expertise in the area of disability discrimination. As well, the internet is a useful tool to assist with locating examples, within Australia or overseas, where long-held beliefs have been put aside and deaf people have been proven capable to undertake study or employment in an area previously inaccessible to them.  Some examples here include:

• A young deaf person wished to work as a nurse, but was told this was not possible because of a number of factors seen as critical to nursing that they could not hear.  It was pointed out that technology is able to adapt many such requirements in that field (e.g. flashing lights for auditory alarms, stethoscopes with amplification) as well as the fact that deaf people compensate for a lack of hearing by being more visually alert. A Google search located multiple sites relating to deaf nurses.
• A deaf person, whilst studying at university, found that they were constantly disadvantaged in assignments by the difficulties that they experienced with English literacy. Their ability to read English text presented few challenges; however, despite the years of special education for the deaf as well as a high level of fluency in Auslan and a very broad English vocabulary, the ability to create grammatically correct English sentences eluded them. Academic staff were adamant that assignments needed to be produced in academic English and that they would not be read for content alone. Disability Liaison Unit staff negotiated with academic staff providing them with information about the challenges of English literacy for many people who have early life deafness.

Barrier

Sometimes an institution either refuses or limits the provision of access through interpreters, notetakers and/or technology. Support provision is quite costly and some institutions, especially smaller RTOs and Group Training Organisations, claim unjustifiable hardship because of the cost involved.

Solution

This area of protection under the DDA is somewhat vexed because the legislation does allow for a claim of unjustifiable hardship and it is undeniable that the cost of interpreters and notetakers are high. The DDA does not guarantee access; rather it prescribes that people cannot be treated differently or unfairly because of their disability. As well, the DDA is legislation that falls into a category of law known as precedent law. Ultimately, this means that each legal decision made in relation to the law shapes and defines it.

It is clear from precedent that TAFE institutions, which are large and government funded, cannot claim unjustifiable hardship in relation to the provision of support services to allow for access for deaf people. Small, privately run Registered Training Authorities, Neighbourhood Houses and at least some Group Training Organisations can, and frequently do, fall within financial boundaries that allow them to legally refuse to provide access through interpreters and notetakers. However, this does not mean that they are allowed to deny access to the course if the deaf person does not require these services and/or other communication strategies can be employed to allow for access.

In the end, this frequently means that the easiest and “safest” pathway for a deaf person to take is to enrol through larger TAFE institutes rather than through smaller, private providers. However, this is not to imply that should the deaf student wish to undertake a course in one of these smaller providers, that they should not approach the provider to express their interest and enquire about the ability of the provider to meet their needs.

English Literacy

Another challenge for many people who have been born with a significant hearing loss has been alluded to above, but is worth exploring further. That is, the English literacy difficulties that many deaf adults face. Some deaf people are quite skilled at both reading English text (comprehension) and writing it (expression). Others may fare quite well when reading English, but face difficulties in trying to produce fluent, native-like English in writing. Your son or daughter may experience difficulties with English literacy, but you may not realise that the majority of deaf children, particularly those with a significant hearing loss, struggle with the same skills. You may also not be aware why this occurs. Or you may not know how to explain this impact of deafness to a wider community that does not wholly understand the ramifications of early life deafness. It may assist you to understand how language and literacy develop.

How Early Life Deafness Impacts on a Child

From the moment of birth, and even before, a hearing child is listening to and absorbing language. Hearing children are constantly surrounded by language from parents, TV, radio, etc. They learn much of their language and their knowledge of the world both by interacting using their developing language as well as in an unconscious and unstructured way through overhearing what goes on around them. They learn to speak as a direct result of the language that they hear.

Understanding this point about how language and speech are quite separate is vital in understanding how a hearing child and a child with a hearing loss differ. Speech is the articulation of sounds. Language is the meaning that is encoded in the sounds. For a child with a hearing loss, the biggest challenge they face is the acquisition of language.

For this reason, the development of language for a child with a significant hearing loss may best involve the use of a sign language, in Australia Auslan, as a first and primary language as it is accessible to the child as a whole language, where English is not. Then, these well-developed first language skills underpin the development of English as a second language.

Most linguists agree that human beings are “pre-programmed” to develop language and that if a child is exposed to a full and complete language during the early years of their life, they will develop that language effortlessly. If this exposure either does not occur or is limited or incomplete, as is commonly the case for children with a significant hearing loss, then English language acquisition will not be attained without considerable effort and additional intervention. This is why there has been a worldwide move to the use of bi-lingual programs in the education of significantly deaf children. By combining the use of a sign language, which is wholly accessible to a deaf child, with second language learning of the spoken language of the country in which the child lives, a more holistic language approach is attained and, research indicates, greater educational outcomes achieved.

It must be recongnised that without fully developed English language, it is a nearly insurmountable task to attain reading and writing skills in English. Without day-to-day access to English language in use, the challenge to develop English literacy is enormous and for many Deaf people, a life long challenge. Few achieve native-like usage; many achieve sufficient literacy skills to successfully interact in the world; some are unable to attain literacy skills beyond an early primary level. None of this is a reflection of the Deaf person’s intelligence or ability to learn. Rather, it is an indication of how difficult a task it is to learn the written form of a language when a person has little or no access to its spoken form.

It is also important to note here that different skills are required in order to read and to write. These two skills are often taken together as being one and the same. They are not. It is possible for someone to be able to accurately extract the meaning from a grammatically correct English sentence, yet be unable to produce a grammatically correct sentence of his or her own.

For many Deaf people, their English vocabulary is well developed, but their grasp of the grammar and syntax of English is only poor to average. As well, they may struggle with the use of idiomatic English. For a significant number of Deaf people, it is possible to indicate what each word in a sentence is, but be unable to put that information together to clearly indicate the meaning of a sentence. Again, this relates directly back to the difficulties that they experience in trying to access the written form of a language when they have limited access its spoken form.