Peter pleads, Ziggy launches & JR lectures on the Brits

[ziggy]

While modeling the PDGA after larger sports that have a very top down leadership organization I don't know how much I want the PDGA to be run by a Bud Selig someday. Plus those types of orgs turn into a good ol' boys club really easily which I am pretty against.

Gee Frank,

I just might run for PDGA BOD just to try and see if a deaf guy can defuse the good ol' boys concept.

Greetings All,
Yes, I'm looking at you Frank!

I wanted to take a moment of time to personally tell you that I have put my hat into the competition for PDGA board of directors.

After discussing the feasibility for a Deaf person to even consider nomination, I feel this is a good opportunity to test my mettle by running against the good ol'boys club.

I strongly believe communication is essential for growth and on a more personal matter, look forward to improving relationships for the Deaf disc golf players with the PDGA and hearing participants.

I would personally love to have your support to help grow the sport. I would also love for you to reach out to your friends, clubs, and competitors to announce my intentions and hopefully consider my nomination. Should you have any questions about my disability or my intentions to better the game, please fire away. I look forward to challenging you to a greater good!

I also would recommend that you consider Mike Solt for Board of Directors. He will be running for a position too. He is also known as Mr.DiscGolf and runs a tour designed for the Amateurs in southeastern Pennsylvania. His goal is to improve the game for amateurs since the majority of PDGA relies on amateurs. He can be contacted at mikesolt@gmail.com if you have any questions for him.

[Frank Delicious]

woah, where did this thread come from?

[Peot]

I mean, not to flame-bait or anything, but why should it matter if someone is deaf or not when it comes to running for PDGA BOD?

[ziggy]

I mean, not to flame-bait or anything, but why should it matter if someone is deaf or not when it comes to running for PDGA BOD?

We need more people like you, Peot.

With hearing loss comes an issue.
Making sure you and I (deaf people) are both understood.
The facilitation of information (i.e. Communication) is difficult without an effective medium.
Deaf people use sign language. The majority use spoken english.
They can learn sign language. Deaf people will never learn to hear.

To top this off, 10% of the Deaf community will be able to advance itself past 10th grad English as a second language.
I have statistics (school psychologist is my day gig) that I cant reference off my iphone at the moment. The use of forums/electronic text is not the most effective forum for the majority of deaf people to be understood.

For me, I am interested in communication and the exchange of ideas. Unfortunately, my disability has been discriminated more than i have been accepted. Frank has raised the idea of communication and the good ol' boys club which encourages me to try and establish a vehicle out of left field.

Should the paid members of PDGA be interested in having a board of directors accomodate a Deaf amateur disc golfer on the board, that would be something else!! Open the floodgates to communication and breaking stereotypes. I do have experience with disc golf as a lifelong amateur, contributor to various dg websites, builder of a dg course, having my pulse on the Deaf dg community nationwide, sponsorships, being a nutter trader, and yakking where the going gets good.

For reference, outside of sports and television, are you aware of any Deaf citizens ? how about any Deaf pdga officials? One goal I have for the PDGA is to develop a sign language version of the competition manual and official rule book. There is also a need for a reasonable accomodation request in the guidelines.

Should you have any more questions, Fire away! I enjoy opening up discussions with the intent to share and grow awareness about my disability/minority. All I ask is for a curious and open mind to be willing to exchange ideas.

And maybe some skins on the course! )

[ziggy]

woah, where did this thread come from?

Short story: Peter Shive.

Long story: The need for diversity and amateur involvement on the big stage.

Thank you Frank!

[ferretdance03]

...The use of forums/electronic text is not the most effective forum for the majority of deaf people to be understood.

This confuses me. Why does the loss or lack of hearing make reading and writing more difficult? Is it the learning process that is more difficult?

One goal I have for the PDGA is to develop a sign language version of the competition manual and official rule book. There is also a need for a reasonable accomodation request in the guidelines.

And I guess until I understand the answer to my previous question this will seem a bit redundant to me.

[ziggy]

...The use of forums/electronic text is not the most effective forum for the majority of deaf people to be understood.

This confuses me. Why does the loss or lack of hearing make reading and writing more difficult? Is it the learning process that is more difficult?

Short answer: yes, extremely.

Long answer: have at it.

Glad you asked. I will try and paint you a picture. Please keep asking questions, I may not be on the same page as you but my intentions are to try and bridge the gap here.

There is something about the early effect of sensory deprivation. It delays the maturation of a brain. This becomes an educational consequence of failed communication as there is a struggle to convey ideas and feelings into English.

Reading/Writing becomes delayed due to the lack of communication access. Language in the purest form is seperate from English. English has its own rules for grammar, punctuation and sentence order. Limited exposure to English stunts the ability to grow. The average kid with no hearing loss will hear about 10,000 words a day with incidential learning exposure. The average deaf kid will maybe "see" 500-2,000 words a day, often repetitive. There is no substitute for natural learning but how does a Deaf kid learn when schools and parents are unable to communicate 100% ? Lipreading is a skill. Imagine 1000 rated lipreaders. How did they get there? By learning English first. Now those juniors, they gotta learn English first before they can become 1000 rated.

For deafness, there are several different communication options, just as there are throwing styles. The majority of us are visual learners. We are receptive and expressive when it comes to use of handshapes, body languages, and placement (think mimes). If we are able to identify hearing loss early, there is a chance for amplification with hearing aids. However, amplification does not induce clarity. Think watching a foreign movie with no subtitles. Imagine watching Disc Golf videos on mute. Try to pick up what the pros are teaching you, grip, throwing, putting, and so forth with only what you see and cannot hear. For those who are lucky enough to get access to communication early as possible, there is a better chance of reading and writing.

So in a perfect world, we would be exposed to a language rich educational experience with the right to communicate with each other, exchange ieas and thoughts. The problem is the majority of the Deaf have few or no language skills. They live in a bubble with limited communication access and social isolation which leads to a higher rate of academic failure. Even I, as an educated college major, still have difficulty dealing with the grammar police. I generally understand the essentials and offer my thoughts with the hope that I am able to help people understand the problem through writing.

There are quite a few factors that may increase or decrease your chance for communication. 90% of those factors involve other people becoming educated and bridging the gap. (i.e. people becoming culturally sensitive, learning how to sign, and making accomodations accessible such as turning on the closed captioning on television when a Deaf person enters the room) - The earlier we can provide effective communication opportunities, the better our chances of learning English.

There is also the case of Autism. For some reason, autism and deafness are tied into the same department. I have seen research state that up to 40% of the Deaf population have additional disabilities with Autism being the most common. I am still skeptical, holding out hope, for something for more reliable in measuring the data.

With the rise of technology, foreign languages can easily bridge the gap by turning on auto-translate for discussion forums and share. But there is no technology to translate a visual language that cannot be textually transcribed word for word. To do so requires youtube and a willingness to add subtitles and try and translate into English.

Does this help?

[ferretdance03]

Does this help?

It does. I guess as a hearing person I never really thought about it. Thanks for taking the time to explain it for me.

[Star Shark]

Also realize the simple side of it. Written words are our way of representing sounds. Difficult to learn to understand something you can't process in the manner it was initially designed in.

[ziggy]

Also realize the simple side of it. Written words are our way of representing sounds. Difficult to learn to understand something you can't process in the manner it was initially designed in.

Tthat is an excellent point Shark, it didnt even register here. thanks for sharing!
Would that be consider phonetics?

[Dbuntu]

There is also the case of Autism. For some reason, autism and deafness are tied into the same department. I have seen research state that up to 40% of the Deaf population have additional disabilities with Autism being the most common. I am still skeptical, holding out hope, for something for more reliable in measuring the data.

Ziggy, do you think Autism gets linked with Deafness because both Autistic and Deaf people tend to have trouble communicating with the world outside their bubble?

[JR]

Also realize the simple side of it. Written words are our way of representing sounds. Difficult to learn to understand something you can't process in the manner it was initially designed in.

Tthat is an excellent point Shark, it didnt even register here. thanks for sharing!
Would that be consider phonetics?

I'm not knowledgeable in the subject but language is more fundamental than you guys have written about to the development of mental faculties. Language steers the way people think and there are differences between languages thus thinking too to a degree.

I had a laff about bad science when i heard a serious American feminist scholar claiming that all men are violent by nature just look at the language they use about themselves so how do you think men behave towards others if self and a touchy part gets treated like spanking the monkey, squeezing the chicken and a slew of other terms i've forgotten? I was chuckling at the typical US centrism of that woman. There are no such violence based terms that i can think of in my mother tongue A classic case of bias of too narrow a perspective using only one language as a research subject. So obviously different languages with different results should adjust the findings.

Is she right about all English speaking men being violent? Dunno and doubt it very much but throughout history people speaking that language have done their fair share of fighting.

It is interesting to see how the UK is the most active war fighter of nations in existence when one calculates the years of existence divided by the wars that that country has fought. Israel, Russia and the US complete the top 4 and Israel and Russia have been invaded more than once. The UK and The US too but in a ratio of invading and being invaded i would think that the UK and the US come up dirtiest. I have no figures for that because i haven't seen a study made of that and haven't done the math myself. None of the above countries are angels if you look at their history and current behavior. Two of the top four war mongers have English as the predominant language and the UK has had the largest empire in history. Hmm... That still does not mean that all Englsih speaking males would be naturally violent. But it does paint a picture none the less.

Shared history and beliefs, customs etc. too play a role in the development of mind. So having sign language as the first language probably does make a difference in other ways than the social bubble too.

[ziggy]

Ziggy, do you think Autism gets linked with Deafness because both Autistic and Deaf people tend to have trouble communicating with the world outside their bubble?

Shared history and beliefs, customs etc. too play a role in the development of mind. So having sign language as the first language probably does make a difference in other ways than the social bubble too.

The first test with Autism tends to be communication/language that ties in the "theory of mind" development that JR touches on the surface. Unfortunately, those who are deaf(and autistic) tend to be diagnosed later with autism than those who are hearing. A simple questionnaire and observation can identify autism from the children who use voice to speak and exchange communication. But if they have hearing loss, it is uncertain if they have learning disability, autism, just deafness, or both. Thus prolonging the opportunity to advocate.

JR- interesting you touch on English/violence. (thread drift, thank you Peter Shrive!) Couple things I thought of. 1) English is the dominant language outside of Asian influences. To get there, English had to "takeover" certain elements. 2) America is a melting pot. A recipe for conflict when we are naturally inclined to oppose things in order to solve them and feel good. 3) Did you count the numerous civil wars in Africa among the calculations? For some reason, the media has downplayed the ongoing conflict especially between tribal takeovers.

[JR]

Unfortunately i don't remember where i read the list of years in existence/number of wars study result. I don't know how the study was made with what kind of limits etc. It didn't list that many top countries and an African country may have been in there. Not that many African countries have been around that long in their current form. Egypt was such a power house in ancient times that those who dared to attack Egypt had to grow large themselves first and that took time so i don't think that Egyptian large amount of wars is concentrated in those times. In the last century they had a lot of conflict. Egypt in the last century is of course very different from ancient times and i don't know how that is accounted for in that study.

Like every car is leading in their own class (often being the only one in their class har har) imposing artificial or not that well thought out limits should vary the results so who knows... One thing is certain. If you look at the list of countries fought against and the years of peace vs war in the US in the last century up to today the picture ain't pretty.

The UK was a melting pot prior to colonization of the Americas and they certainly had conflicts. I heard an interesting theory about revolutions. It states that most nations that have had revolutions that succeeded stuck quickly into the mindset of the era of the revolution and have stayed there mostly until today.

So UK first. Stuffy? You bet.

US then. Still taking away from others and often glorifying pillage, plunder and military invasion as well as stick ups and bank robberies. To a point the popular means of get rich quick schemes have changed over times. I eagerly await the time when the only gangsta activity is rapping Long wait

How about the so called mother of modern democracy France? State committed torture as a matter of course... Selling weapons to almost the same stand up guys as the US. Like Saddam Hussein. Including selling more weapons after the first Gulf war that the French participated in. Prior to receiving all of the payments for the destroyed weapons no less... I saw a TV program that stated that there are at least 30 000 slaves in Paris alone. And that it is the largest amount per capita in any European city.

[Roy]

Whats going on here?