First Year Hon. Mention: Deaf Children and Youth, Inspiration and Acceptance: A Study of Deaf Children's Culture

HUMA 1970, Worlds of Childhood. CD: Peter Cumming.

Abstract

Skillfully written and carefully argued, Mariah Marcutti’s submission, “Deaf Children and Youth” underlines that encouraging hearing-impaired youth to accept and understand their own culture and identity is the best path to happy, productive citizens in adulthood. As Marcutti notes, given support and the chance to form peer relationships, Deaf Children (the uppercase D “connotes a cultural identity”) will rapidly adopt and find solace in their own “separate and distinct culture.” Learning sign language is of particular import, and Marcutti does very well to unpack how the ability to express oneself and be understood by others is of central importance to Deaf children and youth.

Throughout, the author makes careful use of evidence and includes many resonant examples to make her case, and it is particularly compelling to have included the words of Deaf children themselves. Few readers would fail to be convinced by the end of the essay. But what makes the work particularly stand out is how it will teach the average user something: to consider deafness not as “a disability which requires treatment,” but instead to think of  “the beauty of the culture,” and see it as legitimate in its own right. The best essays make the reader see the world differently, and Marcutti’s paper succeeds brilliantly at this. It does so by portraying the Deaf child as a person, and not as an Other—as a part of society, but on their own terms and with their own agency.