Assignment 3

”Normal”
Normal is an interesting word. In a sense, normal is considered to mean something repetitive, something recurrent. At the same time, normal is also a majority, a minimization of exceptions, something expected. Both the behavior and looks of a person can be normal. Opinions, beliefs, thoughts, actions… The list goes on. Normal is somehow considered to be good, be- cause normal can also be comforting in a sense. For many of us, normal is preferable – regardless of what we’re talking about.

But at the same time, normal has an opposite – abnormal. Something or someone can also be abnormal. Behavior, looks, opinions, beliefs, thoughts – and action all of them can be abnormal too.

But is abnormal automatically bad? Is abnormal something we should avoid, dislike or disregard, simply because it is the opposite of normal – something that we often consider ”good”?

If a person has ”normal” thoughts but looks different, is that person con- sidered to be normal or abnormal? Besides, who delivers the judgement or blessing of someone or something being labeled as abnormal or normal?

Stigmatization
In this assignment, I’ve decided to look closer to the stigmatization caused by hearing impairment. Hearing impairment, much like other impairment, has many different levels . Some can still hear and speak properly, some have a little trouble hearing and pronouncing things right and some can’t even have one single word heard or said. The main reason to why I will further examine stigmatization on hearing impairment is because I find it interesting to observe how not being able to speak and hear often is equated to being unintelligent. It doesn’t really matter if the person i question has trouble with the language or if he or she has any kind of impairment – not being able to communicate properly through speech will often lead to people perceiving you as – more or less – unintelligent.

Interestingly, hearing impairment (or even language troubles) doesn’t neces- sarily have anything to do with the cognitive ability. Placing an intelligent person in a country where he or she doesn’t know the language doesn’t make the person less intelligent, neither is a person with earplugs less in intelligent simply because he or she then would have more trouble while communicating. But why are we so quick to draw such a conclusion? Is a person unintelligent because I have to repeat myself or because he or she talks in a strange way?

Two (rather insulting) terms that come to mind when I’m thinking about the stigmatization of hearing impairment are ”deaf and dumb” and ”deaf-mute”.
The using of ”deaf and dumb” mainly started way back in the medieval English era where it was negative label pinned on the hearing impaired. It originates from Aristotle, the famous Greek philosopher, who said that ”deaf people were incapable of being taught, of learning and of reasoned thinking”. ”Deaf-mute” is also a term used to insult, originating form the 18-19th cen- tury, used to describe hearing impairment as silent without a voice (worthy of hearing), not too different from what Aristotle was expressing.

Clearly, hearing impairment’s stigmatization is far from a recent phenom- ena. To be honest, I don’t think that it somehow will fade out of existence either. But is it possible to use design and technology to minimize it, at least to begin with? Is it possible to broaden what we consider normal with the tools we have available now?

Design
There is no doubt that many of today’s tools are designed to simplify living with any kind of impairment. More and more communication is done by messaging through phones or social media, and that may have minimized the trouble of not being able to speak or hear.

There are also great supporting tools available today to support hearing impairment. The best and most used example of today’s technology is the classical hearing aid. It supports the user by amplifying the sound from outside simply to make it louder and, in some cases, also helps to filter sounds based on e.g. if it is background noise or speech. Most of today’s hearing aids are designed with minimalism in focus and don’t look much different from the regular earphones. Because of its great support and the fact that it is minimal in shape and size, the hearing aid stands out as a great example of how you can use design to minimize the stigmatization of hearing impairment. With it, the wearer would have less trouble in hearing or carrying a conversation and at the same time face less stigmatization as the aid visibility is low as well.

What if today’s hearing aid would resemble its origin, the ear trumpet, instead? Would that really impact the stigmatization?

Unfortunately, I honestly don’t think so. The ear trumpet is a lot bigger and clumsier tool to have or carry around. While it would help in the sense that it would support the user by amplifying the sound, but it would at the same time most likely be the source of stigmatization for other reasons too. A better example would be a wheelchair. It certainly helps as it can heavily support paralysis, muscular diseases or other physical impairments – but due to it’s size, limited usability and added clumsiness it might be- come another source of stigmatization itself by simply transferring the issue.

With the technology we have today, we both have and will certainly con- tinue to broaden the normality area though by – more or less – removing the reason for the stigmatization to begin with as much as we can. Some areas (e.g. physical impairments, cognitive impairments) are a bit tougher than others (e.g. hearing impairment, visual impairments), but far from impos- sible. It is just a matter of finding the balance between usability, support and minimal added negative impacts – providing a tool that is easy to use, helps and doesn’t negatively effect other part of the user’s life.