Trauma and deaf education

What is it about?

This essay presents a story of personal loss and childhood trauma experienced by the author in 1968. Written in autoethnographic form, the author narrates a particular time in his life when he lost his hearing and subsequently experienced trauma due to forced separation from family on the day he began life at a residential school for deaf children. Forty-six years later, the author weaves together a narrative of loss and trauma followed by his own reflections, showing how he used writing conversation as a source of healing that allowed him reconcile with his past.

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Why is it important?

This paper contributes to the loss and trauma literature because there is very little research on how deaf people experience trauma due to separation from families at a very young age when they started residential school.