Deaf Hero Robert Weitbrecht

This past week my belly dancing instructor made the comment, "There's a fine line between erotic and exotic." In dancing, the difference is in how many inches apart you hold your feet while shimmying. Just a few inches can create a completely different look-- alluring and graceful or flaunting and brash.

The debate we've been having in here and on other blogs between "audism" and "deafism" got me thinking about the lines we draw between ourselves as deaf people. Medically speaking there's a fine line between a severe hearing loss and a profound hearing loss. There's a fine line between "hard-of-hearing" and "late-deafened" or "d-deaf." There's a fine line between oral deaf who were born without hearing and late-deafened who were born hearing, then lost most of their hearing. I know several oral "d-deaf" who hear better than me, who also sign better than me and speak well too. It seems to me they are the best off because they speak and sign so well. I envy them. I wish I were fluent in ASL, but I didn't grow up with a profound hearing loss. I am trying to learn.

Part of the reason I blog is to inform hearing people about deaf people. This is why I have Deaf Hero Day each week. Today's hero is deaf physicist, Robert H. Weitbrecht who invented the coupler for the TTY. Born deaf on April 11, 1920 in Orange, California, Weitbrecht was tutored in speechreading-- the prevailing method of deaf education at that time. He did not learn ASL until he was an adult. Because of his hard work, deaf people were able to communicate with each other by phone.

To read more about Weitbrecht, click on his name.