Page 68 - Spring2019

Sound Perspectives
Henry J. Adler
Address:
Center for Hearing and Deafness University at Buffalo The State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo, New York 14214 USA
Email:
henryadl@buffalo.edu
J. Tilak Ratnanather
Address:
Department of Biomedical Engineering Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland 21218 USA
Email:
tilak@cis.jhu.edu
Peter S. Steyger
Address:
Oregon Hearing Research Center Oregon Health & Science University Portland, Oregon 97239 USA
Email:
steygerp@ohsu.edu
Brad N. Buran
Address:
Oregon Hearing Research Center Oregon Health & Science University Portland, Oregon 97239 USA
Email:
buran@ohsu.edu
Scientists with Hearing Loss Changing Perspectives in STEMM
Despite extensive recruitment, minorities remain underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). However, de- cades of research suggest that diversity yields tangible benefits. Indeed, it is not surprising that teams consisting of individuals with diverse expertise are better at solving problems. However, there are drawbacks to socially diverse teams, such as increased discomfort, lack of trust, and poorer communication. Yet, these are off- set by the increased creativity of these teams as they work harder to resolve these issues (Phillips, 2014). Although gender and race typically come to mind when thinking about diversity, people with disabilities also bring unique perspectives and challenges to academic research (think about Stephen Hawking as the most notable example). This is particularly true when they work in a field related to their disability. Here, we briefly introduce four deaf or hard-of-hearing (D/HH) scientists involved in auditory research: Henry J. Adler, J. Tilak Ratnanather, Peter S. Steyger, and Brad N. Buran, the authors of this article. The first three have been in the field since the late 1980s while the fourth has just become an independent investigator. Our purpose is to relay to readers our experiences as D/HH research- ers in auditory neuroscience.
More than 80 scientists with hearing loss have conducted auditory science studies in recent years. They include researchers, clinicians, and past trainees worldwide, spanning diverse backgrounds, including gender and ethnicity, and academic in- terests ranging from audiology to psychoacoustics to molecular biology (Adler et al., 2017). Many have published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA), and recently, Erick Gallun was elected a Fellow of the ASA. Recently, ap- proximately 20 D/HH investigators gathered (see Figure 1) at the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO) that has, in our consen- sus opinion, set the benchmark for accessibility at scientific conferences.
The perspective of scientists who are D/HH provides novel insights into under- standing auditory perception, hearing loss, and restoring auditory functionality. Their identities as D/HH individuals are diverse, and their ability to hear ranges from moderate to profound hearing loss. Likewise, their strategies to overcome spoken language barriers range from writing back and forth (including email or text messaging) to real-time captioning to assistive listening devices to sign lan- guage to Cued Speech.
Henry J. Adler
Born with profound hearing loss, I was diagnosed at 11 months of age and have since worn hearing aids. I attended the Lexington School for the Deaf in Jackson Heights, New York, NY, and then was mainstreamed (from 4th grade) into public schools (including the Bronx High School of Science) in New York City. When I was at Lexington, its policy forbade any sign language, and listening and spoken language (LSL) was my primary mode of communication. At Harvard College,
https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2019.15.1.66
66 | Acoustics Today | Spring 2019 | volume 15, issue 1 ©2019 Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved.