Voices swirl around him, impossible to identify. Though Kent Schafer sees lips moving and the commonplace gestures, they mean nothing to him. He reaches up to cover their mouths and get them to understand when speaking can’t do the trick. Schafer is profoundly deaf, incapable of identifying speech and only able to hear loud noises in a specific decibel range.
“When there’s the challenge of me being uncomfortable or them being uncomfortable, often I will take the role of being uncomfortable because I’m the minority, and I will try to say, ‘Hold on one second’ or write or gesture, and they’ll see my body language change and see that I’m working overtime trying to figure out what’s happening,” Schafer said.
Read more: Deaf is the sound: UA Deaf community strives for accessibility, education