Deaf Action Center returns to its core focus
Shreveport facility enlists technology to try to increase interpreter pool
December 2, 2013
Ronald Williams finds companionship and conversation at a Shreveport center that serves the deaf.
He is among regulars at the Betty and Leonard Phillips Deaf Action Center, where regulars volunteer or vie for points during spirited games of gin rummy. Williams said last week he planned to celebrate his birthday on Thanksgiving, sparking a passionate discussion between Larry Claiborne and Jerry Blount about Blount’s age.
“She’s 71,” Claiborne signed with a grin. Blount shook her head and fussed at him, fingers flying.
“It’s a tight-knit community,” explained David Hylan, executive director of Deaf Action Center, which he said serves an estimated 4,500 sign language users in the Northwest Louisiana area who cope with hearing impairments.
Up to 60,000 people in Northwest Louisiana have some degree of hearing loss. They include older people, adults and military veterans who suffered injuries, Hylan said. Nationally, nearly 1 in 3 people who report hearing problems are age 65 or older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
A small percentage of completely and partially deaf individuals were born that way because of genetic syndromes or infections in their mothers. A larger group lost their hearing in the late 1950s and early 1960s after suffering German measles, or rubella.
“When I was in college, the ‘rubella bubble’ was starting to hit middle school,” Hylan said.
Two or three of every 1,000 babies in the United States are born deaf. Hearing tests for newborns have become widespread only in the past 15 years. By 2010, 98 percent of newborns got a hearing test, up from about 10 percent in 1993. Before then, only children considered at high risk for impaired hearing were screened.
Some babies born deaf now have the option of a cochlear implant. Researchers are testing other high-tech ways to restore hearing to aging or injured adults.
“Because of medical technology, you just don’t see the incidence of deafness as prevalent anymore,” Hylan said.
Older deaf individuals learned a common communication skill – American Sign Language, went to school together and share traditions, like a tap on the shoulder or arm to get someone’s attention.
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