Special Collections

Apple Is My Sign

A 10-year-old boy returns to his parents' apple farm for the holidays after his first term at a school for the deaf in Philadelphia.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

I Can Hear You Whisper

An investigation into the science of hearing, child language acquisition, neuroplasticity, brain development, and Deaf culture.

A mother notices her toddler is not learning to talk the way his brothers did... Is something wrong? Her search for answers is a journey into the mysteries of the human brain.

Lydia Denworth's third son, Alex, was nearly two when he was identified with significant hearing loss that was likely to get worse. Her sweet boy with the big brown eyes had probably never heard her lullabies.

Denworth knew the importance of enrichment to the developing brain but had never contemplated the opposite: Deprivation. How would a child's brain grow outside the world of sound most of us take for granted? How would he communicate? Would he learn to read and write--weren't phonics a key to literacy? How long did they have until Alex's brain changed irrevocably?

In her drive to understand the choices--starting with the angry debate between supporters of American Sign Language and the controversial but revolutionary cochlear implant--Denworth soon found that every decision carried weighty scientific, social and even political implications. As she grappled with the complex collisions between the emerging field of brain plasticity, the possibilities of modern technology, and the changing culture of the Deaf community, she gained a new appreciation of the exquisite relationship between sound, language and learning. It became clear that Alex's ears--and indeed everyone's--were just the beginning.

An acclaimed science journalist as well as a mother, Denworth interviewed the world's experts on language development, inventors of ground-breaking technology, Deaf leaders, and neuroscientists at the frontiers of research. She presents insights from studies of everything from at-risk kids in Head Start to noisy cocktail party conversation, from songbirds to signal processing, and from the invention of the telephone to sign language.

Weaving together tales from the centuries-long quest to develop the cochlear implant and simultaneous leaps in neuroscientific knowledge against a tumultuous backdrop of identity politics, I Can Hear You Whisper shows how sound sculpts our children's brains and the life changing consequences of that delicate process.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Silent Night

Some people may have considered Sue Thomas's deafness a liability. The FBI considered it an asset....

Growing up in northeastern Ohio, Sue Thomas was like any other toddler. But one evening while watching television with her family, suddenly she couldn't hear the sound of the program. The next morning Sue didn't respond to anyone's voice. Her parents rushed her to their family doctor. He delivered devastating news: eighteen month-old Sue had experienced a sudden and total hearing loss.

Sue's parents made a lifelong commitment to help her live as normal a life as possible in the hearing world. With professional assistance, Sue learned to speak and lip read. When school presented challenges, Sue worked harder, eventually earning a B. S. degree and completing graduate work in political science and international relations.

A door opened at the FBI for Sue to begin a training program for deaf people to classify fingerprints. But when agents realized Sue's uncanny ability to read lips, they approached her about undercover surveillance. Sue excelled at her job, exceeding her family's expectations.

Yet something still seemed to be missing in her life. Refocusing her goals on helping others, today Sue is a motivational speaker with a deeper purpose who appears regularly before civic, professional, and church groups. Silent Night tells her inspiring story.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Deaf Again

Drolsbaugh was born to deaf parents, yet had normal hearing that became a progressive hearing loss. Follow his trip through hearing, hard of hearing, and deaf identity. Many provocative ideas and facts are brought forward for discussion.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

The Unheard

Swiller spent his early years in frustrated limbo on the sidelines of the hearing world. So he decided to abandon the well-trodden path after college, setting out to find a place so far removed that his deafness would become irrelevant.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals

Humans' development of literacy has been a recent focus of intense research from the reading, cognitive, and neuroscience fields. But for individuals who are deaf--who rely greatly on their visual skills for language and learning--the findings don't necessarily apply, leaving theoretical and practical gaps in approaches to their education.

Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals: Neurocognitive Measurement and Predictors narrows these gaps by introducing the VL2 Toolkit, a comprehensive test battery for assessing the academic skills and cognitive functioning of deaf persons who use sign language. Skills measured include executive functioning, memory, reading, visuospatial ability, writing fluency, math, and expressive and receptive language. Comprehensive data are provided for each, with discussion of validity and reliability issues as well as ethical and legal questions involved in the study. And background chapters explain how the Toolkit was compiled, describing the procedures of the study, its rationale, and salient characteristics of its participants. This notable book:
Describes each Toolkit instrument and the psychometric properties it measures.
Presents detailed findings on test measures and relationships between skills.
Discusses issues and challenges relating to visual representations of English, including fingerspelling and lipreading.
Features a factor analysis of the Toolkit measures to identify underlying cognitive structures in deaf learners.
Reviews trends in American Sign Language assessment.
Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals is an essential reference for researchers, graduate students, clinicians, and other professionals working in the field of deafness and deaf education across in such areas as clinical child and school psychology, audiology, and linguistics.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Belonging

Gustie Blaine had it all--she was a cheerleader and an honor-roll student, she even got along with her parents--until the summer of her fifteenth year. That summer she got meningitis. It started with a headache, but in the end the illness left her deaf. Belonging is the story of how Gustie's life changed after that illness.

Gustie spent the first months of her recovery with hearing that yo-yoed. One day she could hear just about everything people said; the next, she understood almost nothing. She tried hearing aids, but they only made the garbled sounds louder, not clearer.

By the following winter her hearing was completely gone. Her best friend and confidante, Sara, suddenly had no time for her. School became a nightmare. She couldn't understand most of what was said in her classes. It was nearly impossible to keep up.

Gustie lived in a hearing world, and she felt cut off from everything and everyone. Even her parents. The old ease between them was now strained; accepting her hearing loss was hard. Traditions that the family had taken for granted, like sitting around the Christmas tree and listening to carols, were now impossible.

Gradually though, Gustie began to find new friends, like Lenore, a classmate who wasn't afraid of Gustie's deafness. She met Mr. Tate, a special education teacher, who showed her she still had choices, even in finding a way to communicate. And most importantly, she met Jack. He thought of her deafness as "part of the whole package."

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Finding Zoe

At just a few months old, Zoe was gradually losing her hearing. Her adoptive parents loved her-yet agonized-feeling they couldn't handle raising a Deaf child. Would Zoe go back into the welfare system and spend her childhood hoping to find parents willing to adopt her? Or, would she be the long-sought answer to a mother's prayers?

Brandi Rarus was just 6 when spinal meningitis took away her hearing. Because she spoke well and easily adjusted to lip reading, she was mainstreamed in school and socialized primarily in the hearing community. Brandi was a popular, happy teen, but being fully part of every conversation was an ongoing struggle. She felt caught between two worlds-the Deaf and the hearing.

In college, Brandi embraced Deaf Culture along with the joys of complete and effortless communication with her peers. Brandi went on to become Miss Deaf America in 1988 and served as a spokesperson for her community. It was during her tenure as Miss Deaf America that Brandi met Tim, a leader of the Gallaudet Uprising in support of selecting the university's first Deaf president. The two went on to marry and had three hearing boys-the first non-deaf children born in Tim's family in 125 years.

Brandi was incredibly grateful to have her three wonderful sons, but couldn't shake the feeling something was missing. She didn't know that Zoe, a six-month-old Deaf baby girl caught in the foster care system, was desperately in need of a family unafraid of her different needs. Brandi found the answer to her prayers when fate brought her new adopted daughter into her life.

Set against the backdrop of Deaf America, Finding Zoe is an uplifting story of hope, adoption, and everyday miracles.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

I'll Scream Later

Critically acclaimed and award-winning actress Marlee Matlin reveals the illuminating, moving, and often surprising story of how she defied all expectations to become one of the most prolific and beloved actresses of our time. Marlee Matlin entered our lives as the deaf pupil turned custodian audiences fell in love with in Children of a Lesser God, a role for which she became the youngest woman ever to win a Best Actress Oscar. More than twenty years after her stunning big screen debut, the Golden Globe- and Emmy-nominated actress is an inspirational force of nature -- a mother, an activist, and a role model for millions of deaf and hard-of-hearing people around the world. In I'll Scream Later, Marlee takes readers on the frank and touching journey of her life, from the frightening loss of her hearing at eighteen months old to the highs and lows of Hollywood, her battles with addiction, and the unexpected challenges of being thrust into the spotlight as an emissary for the deaf community. She speaks candidly for the first time about the troubles of her youth, the passionate and tumultuous two-year relationship with Oscar winner William Hurt that dovetailed with a stint in rehab, and her subsequent romances with heartthrobs like Rob Lowe, Richard Dean Anderson, and David E. Kelley. Though she became famous at the age of twenty-one, Marlee struggled all her life to connect with people, fighting against anyone who tried to hold her back. Her own mother often hid behind their communication barrier, and Marlee turned to drugs before she even started high school. However, she found in acting -- with the encouragement of her mentor, Henry Winkler -- a discipline, a drive, and a talent for understanding the human condition that belied her age and her inability to hear. By the time Hollywood embraced her, she had almost no formal training, a fact that caused many other deaf actors to give her the cold shoulder, even as she was looked upon as a spokesperson for their community. She has played memorable roles on wildly popular television shows such as Seinfeld, The West Wing, and The L Word, danced a show-stopping cha-cha-cha on Dancing with the Stars, and now, with uncompromising honesty and humor, Marlee shares the story of her life -- an enduring tale that is an unforgettable lesson in following your dreams.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Sounds Like Skipper

Skipper is a shaggy-haired Jack Russell, one of the earliest dogs trained in a new scheme to help people suffering from deafness. The author, a permanent researcher for BBC TV, has been deaf since infancy. Modern technology can equip her with a special high-powered hearing aid, but Skipper enables her to live alone, summoning her to doorbells and telephones, waking her when the alarm rings, and warning her of such unexpected hazards as burglars or fire alarms. The author's story of life with Skipper is full of insights into the plight of the deaf in contemporary society.

Kerena tells her story of how she received Skipper a Jack Russell terror mix dog, and how his presence changed her life. She also discusses some problems that she experienced as a almost deaf person in a hearing world, and her experiences with the deaf community too.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

I Danced

Weber presents a readable yet comprehensive look at cochlear implants and shares her own story:
why did she choose to hear?
how did she cope?
what were the frustrations with implants?

The book includes some technical information and lists of resources for those with hearing disabilities.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Mean Little Deaf Queer

In 1959, the year Terry Galloway turned nine, the voices of everyone she loved began to disappear. No one yet knew that an experimental antibiotic given to her mother had wreaked havoc on her fetal nervous system, eventually causing her to go deaf. As a self-proclaimed "child freak," she acted out her fury with her boxy hearing aids and Coke-bottle glasses by faking her own drowning at a camp for crippled children. Ever since that first real-life performance, Galloway has used theater, whether onstage or off, to defy and transcend her reality. With disarming candor, she writes about her mental breakdowns, her queer identity, and living in a silent, quirky world populated by unforgettable characters. What could have been a bitter litany of complaint is instead an unexpectedly hilarious and affecting take on life.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Blind Side

DEAD FROGS CAN'T JUMP On the eve of Calaveras County's annual frog-jumping contest, is the suspicious death of Buford, the county's prizewinning amphibian, sabotage or murder? Feisty local newspaper publisher Connor Westphal ponders the irony of this untimely tragedy-- made suddenly more alarming when poor Buford's handler, Dakota Webster, is found floating in Critter's Creek surrounded by dozens more dead frogs. Connor is more than curious when the frog of a rival competitor is discovered stuffed in the dead man's mouth, and worried when the prime suspect is Jeremiah "Miah" Mercer, one of her closest friends. Determined to clear Miah's name, Connor navigates a sordid mess of toxic waste, embezzlement, prescription drug scams and cold-blooded murder ... taking a dangerous leap of her own in a race to catch a killer.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Longshot

Lance Allred was probably the last person you'd expect to make it in professional sports. Not only did he grow up on a polygamist commune in Montana, he struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder. If those hurdles to the NBA don't seem large enough, Lance is also deaf.

Self-deprecating, witty, and wholly original, Longshot is the unlikely story of an unlikely athlete, who despite these factors and a lot of setbacks along the way, finally realized his dream of playing in the NBA, becoming the first legally deaf player in the league.

Lance refused to let others' expectations hinder his dreams, and his refreshing sense of humor about his disability allowed him to face these setbacks without giving up. From his childhood on the commune where he was "Mormon royalty" (his grandfather was prophet Rulon Allred of the fundamentalist sect) to his first time picking up a basketball (eighth grade), to his clumsy efforts to build his skills while growing into his 6' 11" frame, Longshot is a riveting account of a young man finding his purpose and letting the love of the game drive him toward his ultimate goal.

Going inside the competitive world of collegiate basketball and the strange experience of playing professionally in Europe, with paychecks that never arrive and a knee injury Lance's team didn't want to cover, Longshot recounts the moment when Lance hit rock bottom. When he came back to the United States for surgery, Lance was prepared to let go of his basketball dreams and become a high school history teacher like his dad.

But luckily he had an agent who didn't want to see Lance's dream die, and who found him a deal with the Idaho Stampede, an NBA Development League team in Boise. Although it was paltry pay, it was the last resort. And Lance slowly began to be noticed.

Revealing the resilient heart of a young man who truly believes that it's not about failure or success but about being willing to try, Longshot is a Rudy story for a new generation, a tale of inspiration, dedication, and the power of a dream.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Spencer Tracy

His full name was Spencer Bonaventure Tracy. He was called "The Gray Fox" by Frank Sinatra; other actors called him the "The Pope."

Spencer Tracy's image on-screen was that of a self-reliant man whose sense of rectitude toward others was matched by his sense of humor toward himself. Whether he was Father Flanagan of Boys Town, Clarence Darrow of Inherit the Wind, or the crippled war veteran in Bad Day at Black Rock, Tracy was forever seen as a pillar of strength.In his several comedy roles opposite Katharine Hepburn (Woman of the Year and Adam's Rib among them) or in Father of the Bride with Elizabeth Taylor, Tracy was the sort of regular American guy one could depend on.

Now James Curtis, acclaimed biographer of Preston Sturges ("Definitive" --Variety), James Whale, and W. C. Fields ("By far the fullest, fairest, and most touching account . . . we have yet had. Or are likely to have" --Richard Schickel, The New York Times Book Review, cover review), gives us the life of one of the most revered screen actors of his generation.

Curtis writes of Tracy's distinguished career, his deep Catholicism, his devoted relationship to his wife, his drinking that got him into so much trouble, and his twenty-six-year-long bond with his partner on-screen and off, Katharine Hepburn. Drawing on Tracy's personal papers and writing with the full cooperation of Tracy's daughter, Curtis tells the rich story of the brilliant but haunted man at the heart of the legend. We see him from his boyhood in Milwaukee; given over to Dominican nuns ("They drill that religion in you"); his years struggling in regional shows and stock (Tracy had a photographic memory and an instinct for inhabiting a character from within); acting opposite his future wife, Louise Treadwell; marrying and having two children, their son, John, born deaf.

We see Tracy's success on Broadway, his turning out mostly forgettable programmers with the Fox Film Corporation, and going to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and getting the kinds of roles that had eluded him in the past--a streetwise priest opposite Clark Gable in San Francisco; a screwball comedy, Libeled Lady; Kipling's classic of the sea, Captains Courageous. Three years after arriving at MGM, Tracy became America's top male star.

We see how Tracy embarked on a series of affairs with his costars . . . making Northwest Passage and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which brought Ingrid Bergman into his life. By the time the unhappy shoot was over, Tracy, looking to do a comedy, made Woman of the Year. Its unlikely costar: Katharine Hepburn.We see Hepburn making Tracy her life's project--protecting and sustaining him in the difficult job of being a top-tier movie star.

And we see Tracy's wife, Louise, devoting herself to studying how deaf children could be taught to communicate orally with the hearing and speaking world.Curtis writes that Tracy was ready to retire when producer-director Stanley Kramer recruited him for Inherit the Wind--a collaboration that led to Judgment at Nuremberg, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, and Tracy's final picture, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner . . . A rich, vibrant portrait--the most intimate and telling yet of this complex man considered by many to be the actor's actor.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Gallaudet

On a May day in 1814, while watching his younger brothers and sisters at play, Thomas noticed a small girl taking no part. She was Alice Cogswell, and deafness shut her out of the circle. The lack of language created a barrier between her and her friends. Thomas invented a game that helped Alice for the first time in her life to understand that things have names. Thomas knew what he could do. He knew he had to bring education for the deaf to America!

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Sounds from Silence

The author's interest in the development of improved hearing devices for the deaf arose from his interactions with his own father, who lost his hearing. Having worked in a pharmacy, Graham Clark developed a keen interest in pursuing a medical degree. His research and tenacity led him to develop the multiple contact bionic ear. The book takes us on a journey with the author through his life and his perseverance to develp this device.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Train Go Sorry

This portrait of New York's Lexington School for the Deaf is not just a work of journalism. It is also a memoir, since Leah Hager Cohen grew up on the school's campus and her father is its superintendent. As a hearing person raised among the deaf, Cohen appreciates both the intimate textures of that silent world and the gulf that separates it from our own.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Alandra's Lilacs

When, in 1968, 19-year-old Tressa Bowers took her baby daughter to an expert on deaf children, he pronounced that Alandra was "stone deaf," she most likely would never be able to talk, and she probably would not get much of an education because of her communication limitations. Tressa refused to accept this stark assessment of Alandra's prospects. Instead, she began the arduous process of starting her daughter's education. Economic need forced Tressa to move several times, and as a result, she and Alandra experienced a variety of learning environments: a pure oralist approach, which discouraged signing; Total Communication, in which the teachers spoke and signed simultaneously; a residential school for deaf children, where Signed English was employed; and a mainstream public school that relied upon interpreters. Changes at home added more demands, from Tressa's divorce to her remarriage, her long work hours, and the ongoing challenge of complete communication within their family. Through it all, Tressa and Alandra never lost sight of their love for each other, and their affection rippled through the entire family. Today, Tressa can triumphantly point to her confident, educated daughter and also speak with pride of her wonderful relationship with her deaf grandchildren. Alandra's Lilacs is a marvelous story about the resiliency and achievements of determined, loving people no matter what their circumstances might be.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Carry Me Like Water

"Sentimental and ferocious, upsetting and tender, firmly magic-realist yet utterly modern. . . Sáenz is a writer with greatness in him." —San Diego Union TribuneWith Carry Me Like Water, Benjamin Alire Sáenz unfolds a beautiful story about hope and forgiveness, unexpected reunions, an expanded definition of family, and, ultimately, what happens when the disparate worlds of pain and privilege collide.Diego, a deaf-mute, is barely surviving on the border in El Paso, Texas. Diego's sister, Helen, who lives with her husband in the posh suburbs of San Francisco, long ago abandoned both her brother and her El Paso roots. Helen's best friend, Lizzie, a nurse in an AIDS ward, begins to uncover her own buried past after a mystical encounter with a patient.This immensely moving novel confronts divisions of race, gender, and class, fusing together the stories of people who come to recognize one another from former lives they didn't know existed— or that they tried to forget. 

Date Added: 03/08/2018

The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin

Being a hefty, deaf newcomer almost makes Will Halpin the least popular guy at Coaler High. But when he befriends the only guy less popular than him, the dork-namic duo has the smarts and guts to figure out who knocked off the star quarterback. Will can't hear what's going on, but he's a great observer. So, who did it? And why does that guy talk to his fingers? And will the beautiful girl ever notice him? (Okay, so Will's interested in more than just murder . . . )

Those who prefer their heroes to be not-so-usual and with a side of wiseguy will gobble up this witty, geeks-rule debut.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Deaf Child Crossing

Megan is excited when Cindy moves into her neighborhood -- maybe she'll finally have a best friend. Sure enough, the two girls quickly become inseparable. Cindy even starts to learn sign language so they can communicate more easily.

But when they go away to summer camp together, problems arise. Cindy feels left out, because Megan is spending all of her time with Lizzie, another deaf girl; Megan resents that Cindy is always trying to help her, even when she doesn't need help. Before they can mend their differences, both girls have to learn what it means to be a friend.

A sensitive depiction of childhood friendship with its fragility, jealousies, and joys" - Booklist

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Deaf Like Me

Deaf Like Me is the moving account of parents coming to terms with their baby girl's profound deafness. The love, hope, and anxieties of all hearing parents of deaf children are expressed here with power and simplicity.

In the epilogue, Lynn Spradley as a teenager reflects upon being deaf, her education, her struggle to communicate, and the discovery that she was the focus of her father's and uncle's book. At once moving and inspiring, Deaf Like Me is must reading for every parent, relative, and friend of deaf children everywhere.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Burn Down the Ground

In this powerful, affecting, and unflinching memoir, a daughter looks back on her unconventional childhood with deaf parents in rural Texas while trying to reconcile it to her present life--one in which her father is serving a twenty-year sentence in a maximum-security prison.

As a child, Kambri Crews wished that she'd been born deaf so that she, too, could fully belong to the tight-knit Deaf community that embraced her parents. Her beautiful mother was a saint who would swiftly correct anyone's notion that deaf equaled dumb. Her handsome father, on the other hand, was more likely to be found hanging out with the sinners. Strong, gregarious, and hardworking, he managed to turn a wild plot of land into a family homestead complete with running water and electricity. To Kambri, he was Daniel Boone, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ben Franklin, and Elvis Presley all rolled into one. But if Kambri's dad was Superman, then the hearing world was his kryptonite. The isolation that accompanied his deafness unlocked a fierce temper--a rage that a teenage Kambri witnessed when he attacked her mother, and that culminated fourteen years later in his conviction for another violent crime.

With a smart mix of brutal honesty and blunt humor, Kambri Crews explores her complicated bond with her father--which begins with adoration, moves to fear, and finally arrives at understanding--as she tries to forge a new connection between them while he lives behind bars. Burn Down the Ground is a brilliant portrait of living in two worlds--one hearing, the other deaf; one under the laid-back Texas sun, the other within the energetic pulse of New York City; one mired in violence, the other rife with possibility--and heralds the arrival of a captivating new voice.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Anything But Silent

This book is a compilation of the most thought-provoking articles by deaf writer Mark Drolsbaugh. With a blend of humor and insight Drolsbaugh tackles some of the most profound topics in deafness deafhearing relationships the rift between American Sign Language and English the hidden world of the hard of hearing oppression in politics and education idiosyncrasies of the deaf and hearing and may others. Anything But Silent offers a deaf perspective that will bring knowing smiles to those familiar with the deaf community and enlightenment to those who are new to it.

Date Added: 03/08/2018