Inventor At Work

There are quite a few innovations that came about because some of the participants were deaf. You can often see these innovations in every day life and you may even use some of them yourself without knowing where the notion came from. This should not be surprising given that almost ten percent of people are either deaf or hard of hearing.

In fact, some degree of deafness affects about 22 million US citizens and they are mixed pretty evenly over the whole spectrum of the population – men, women and children; young an old; black and white; upper and lower class. Some were born with deafness and others developed it as the result of an accident or through old age or several other means as well.

I would like to give a few examples of how people suffering from deafness have influenced our everyday society.

The huddle in American football is not done only so that the opponents cannot overhear strategy, often they are quite far away. It was first arranged by a college for the deaf, because otherwise the captain would have had to shout, which of course could have been overheard by the opposition quite a long way away.

If you love baseball, then you will have heard of the Cincinnati Reds. Well, it was their deaf centre fielder, William Hoy, who began all the hand signals that you now see during every baseball game.

Shorthand is maybe not used as much now as it once was, but it used to be essential on a secretary’s curriculum vitae not very long ago. It was or still is thought to be the only way to take down conversations at, say a board meeting accurately. Shorthand was also invented by a deaf person, namely John Gregg.

Most deaf people use sign language, which is called signing. It is a shame that every spoken language came up with its own sign language, so that deaf people did not have the first truly international language, but there is a lot of work being done to that end. Signing may become the first truly internationally understood language.

Scuba divers were fast to pick up on the usefulness of signing and it is extensively used by divers all over the world. Scuba or deep sea divers do use an internationally acknowledged set of signals.

Being deaf is classed as a disability and rightly so, but imagine what the world of music, or even the Western world itself, would be like if it had not been for Beethoven? He was totally deaf when he wrote the 9th Symphony.

Alexander Graham Bell was not deaf himself, but he was working on a technique to help his deaf wife when he invented the telephone. He had also helped teach deaf children too.

Eric Clapton and Peter Townsend of the former band ‘The Who’ are deaf, as is Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. It just goes to show that deafness does not preclude you from any occupation. Deafness is a disability, but many deaf people have shown that their hearing impairment is not going to wreck their lives.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with hearing aids supplies. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Digital Hearing Aids Prices.