Yeah, I get the “running around for a pen and paper” thing a lot too — which is sometimes nice (since, unlike you, I do sometimes need for people to write things down) but sometimes annoying because I *do* lipread some and there are times when I wish people would at least try that first, or at least *ask* which I prefer. Then there are other times when I need for them to write to me but they either can’t read or they just can’t seem to grasp the idea of writing as a means of communication. (Once or twice I’ve gotten this reaction: *gasp*! “You use WRITING for communication because you can’t hear! What a BRILLIANT idea! You disabled people must be so CREATIVE to think of these ASTOUNDING strategies …” Not that exact phrasing, but pretty much that tone. Yeah, sure, I’m so creative that I’ve come up with the exact same brilliant idea, oh, only 365 days a year since the age of 7. Gnrnk.)

Of course most people don’t know how to sign, though every once in a while someone will apologize to me that they don’t know how, which always puzzles me (do they really think that I expect the whole world to learn to sign? I mean, hey, sure, I would LOVE it if everyone did, but I’m a smart girl, I’ve had 37 years to figure out that most people don’t!)

Some years ago I had another friend (no longer in regular contact) who, like you, was hearing but could not speak (for completely unrelated reasons, though). She told me that she has had experiences where people not only assume that she is deaf but INSIST to her face that she MUST be deaf. If she tried to explain, the other person would insist she had to be in denial and had to learn to accept that she was deaf. So sometimes she would just give up and let people assume she’s deaf. Then they’d ask her if she could lipread. Then she’d say, “Yes, a little bit.” I asked her why she didn’t say that she lipread perfectly, or very well (since, technically, that’s pretty much true). And she told me that, if she tried to make that claim, people would either freak and act all surprised or not believe her again.

Other times, she pretended to be deaf in part because she identified with the Deaf community and was comfortable with the cultural identity even though she was actually hearing. She used ASL with people who understood ASL, and writing with everyone else.

When she and I went to restaurants, the waiters always got confused: they would try to talk to me because I was the one using my voice for both of us, but then I would always look at my friend so she could translate from their spoken English to ASL for me. Waiters couldn’t understand that SHE was the one who could actually hear and understand them, but *I* was the one speaking back to them!

Have you ever tried using the phrasing “I can hear fine” or the like, instead of “not deaf”? Apparently there’s research saying that people don’t parse negative phrases (particularly the word “no” “not” etc) as easily as they parse positive phrasing. So SOME people MIGHT parse “can hear you” better than “not deaf.” But then again, I can see where the general assumption that deaf means can’t speak, and can’t speak means deaf could still be strong enough to override that particular fix. Or else, if they do understand, maybe they’ll just try to tell you that you’re in denial :-)

Yes, people often assume I’m deaf, although the response isn’t usually to sign, it’s to stop talking to me altogether and run around frantically looking for a pen and paper to write things down for me. I at one point had a written thing that said “I’m not deaf, more like the opposite, please speak the way you always do,” and people would decide I was saying I was deaf, so I stopped using it.

Re your situation and my friend’s: I guess this comes back to the oversimplifying stereotypes that people make. For my friend, the issue seems to be that people associate SPEAKING ability so strongly with HEARING ability that they seem to have trouble conceiving of a person who can speak so perfectly but who still cannot hear them. (Do people ever assume you’re deaf just because you usually don’t speak? Or assume that you necessarily sign more than you do?) For you, the issue seems to be that some people can’t seem to grasp that having one disability doesn’t make you magically immune to other disabilities or health problems.

I would say that communication is what is important, not the method used to do so. If you can say what you want with a keyboard, or a pad of paper and a pen, or sign language, or anything else out there available, then you are communicating. The absence of speech in that communication is inane.

Amanda, is there any software you could use that would let you wait until you are finished typing all of what you want to say to activiate the speech mechanism? I’m thinking along the lines of a send command you can launch when you are ready for the automated speech to say what you have said in type. Just wondering.

I discussed the whole speech process with him, and each part of the system has problems, but apraxia is the worst of it.

Now, he telecommutes, and spends an awful lot of time communicating and working by typing on a computer, instead of speaking, so there are times when he maybe had the aura — but he wasn’t engaged in trying to speak with anyone, so he missed it. Either that, or there was no aura those times — but it’s hard to tell one way or the other. His ability to type fluently and read and process text are unaffected until the migraine pain actually starts.

(He may or may not have CAPD, as well; he’s going to go for a diagnosis on that sometime next month.)

With regard to your friend, I’ve experienced something similar I think. I use a wheelchair part of the time, and it has the effect of making people forget I’m autistic. (I have even had people tell me — only when I was using a wheelchair — that autistic people do X, Y, and Z, so they didn’t expect me to be autistic. When in fact I had done X, Y, and Z, all of which were clearly visible things, right in front of them, for the entire conversation.) Because of this, in some settings I actually try to get along without it (even though this means I can’t walk as far and experience plenty of pain and other problems, and will eventually end up needing the chair — or a bed — for a long time afterwards) just so people will remember that I’m not an NT-in-a-chair. Which is one of the weirdest versions of trying to pass for physically non-disabled that I’ve encountered: I attempt to pass for physically non-disabled (or physically less-disabled, by using a cane instead of a chair) at times so that people will remember I’m cognitively disabled.