Speech and language therapists work with many different client groups which includes deafness. While much can be done using technology to aid people’s hearing many people chose to use sign language to help them communicate.
While some people are born with hearing difficulties some people experience a hearing loss later in life. For some their condition can impact on their levels of confidence and self esteem as well as have an impact on those around them.
Rachel Shenton, former Hollyoaks actress, talks about the impact that her father’s hearing loss had on her life in the Express Newspaper. Witnessing her father Geoff struggle as his hearing failed had a huge effect on Rachel Shenton.
The former Hollyoaks actress, now making her name in Los Angeles, was just 12 at the time. In the space of only a few months her dad, who was in his early 60s, became profoundly deaf. There was no history of hearing loss in the family and doctors could not say for sure why it happened.
“One possible explanation was that it was a side effect of successful chemotherapy treatment he’d had for throat cancer but that was years earlier,” says Rachel, now 27, who played Mitzeee Minniver in the Channel 4 soap.
“Dad tried to put on a brave face for us and pretend everything was fine but it meant a huge adjustment for the family,” she says.
“There are so many everyday things you take for granted such as answering the telephone or chatting round the meal table. He had hearing aids but they didn’t help much. Fortunately he could still communicate through speech and he could follow our lips but it made me think a lot about people who are born deaf.”
By then Rachel, who began drama lessons when she was eight, was already on the path to becoming an actress. In her mid teens she also set about learning sign language.
“My father’s deafness was the impetus and I originally intended to pick up a basic understanding but soon decided I wanted to become proficient,” she says.
“It was like learning another language with your hands which is a bizarre concept but it became a real passion.”
Rachel, who was in the soap for three years, ended up studying British Sign Language for five years and earned a qualification which allows her to be a professional interpreter. She has also become a passionate campaigner for wider teaching of sign language and better understanding of the challenges that deaf people face.
“Deafness is a disability that tends to get overlooked because it’s not life-threatening and you can’t see it,” she says.
“I have an insight into how isolating and frustrating it can be. Just try to imagine what it is like being born deaf. I don’t think there is enough awareness about deafness throughout society. If it hadn’t been for my dad it probably wouldn’t have been on my radar.”
The actress, who has also appeared in Doctors and Holby City, has tried to use her celebrity status to help charities for the deaf.
She’s an ambassador for the National Deaf Children’s Society and is supporting a campaign to have sign language taught in schools. There are 45,000 deaf children living in the UK and Rachel, who grew up near Stoke-on-Trent, says: “Even learning a few words of sign language, which can be picked up in hours, can make a difference, deafness and hearing impairment are quite widespread so it’s a very worthwhile skill.”
She’d also like sign language to be more widespread among people working in public places, including restaurants and railway stations.
“I’d like to see sign language become completely normal everywhere, in the same way as ramps for people in wheelchairs,” adds Rachel.
“Unfortunately there’s a lot of ignorance about what it means to be deaf. Most people who are profoundly deaf can lip read well so you should address their face and speak slowly. There’s no need to shout.”
The actress has become a real action woman as part of her charity work, including skydiving and climbing Kilimanjaro to raise funds. While in Africa on the eight-day climb last year she suffered altitude sickness but determinedly made it to the summit.
Rachel has also found that adding sign language to her repertoire opens unlikely doors in the acting world. It’s helped take her from Hollyoaks to Hollywood.
She’s currently in LA working on the show Switched At Birth, playing a student teacher who is fluent in sign language. The series revolves around two teenage girls, one of them deaf, who discover that they were accidentally switched as newborns. The award-winning drama is first in the US to feature multiple deaf and hard-of-hearing characters and includes entire scenes using American Sign Language.
One episode was broadcast only in sign. “American sign language is quite different to British, including the entire alphabet, so it meant some extra learning,” says Rachel, who recently arrived in California.
She’s enjoying the lifestyle and keeping fit by going running in the Hollywood Hills. Her own profession, she believes, is giving a good lead when it comes to catering for the deaf. “Subtitles are quite common on television now,” she says.
“And many theatres offer performances in sign language, usually matinees. We even have deaf theatre companies. In other walks of life a lot of progress has been made in the past 10 years. But so much more could be done to make the lives of deaf people easier and give them more of a voice.”
The success of the series means she is likely to be in demand when she returns to the UK next month. But, as she points out, acting can be a precarious profession and she’s pleased to have another string to her bow.
Rachel, whose father died in 2001, says: “I am proud to have sign language as a skill. Every time I use it I am reminded of my dad.”
To read the story on line go to: The Daily Express
Written by Rachel Harrison, speech and language therapist, on behalf of Integrated Treatment Services.