Arizona republican., 1920-07-24
THOSE WHO LIVE IN SILENCE

are due to the fact that the tiny bones of the middle ear do not respond to vibrations. The air pressure treatment it is said, strengthens the weak muc- cles. and helps restore the efficiency or these bones.
 One child born compIeteiy deaf was treated in this way when she was three years old with the result that some hearing developed. This may seem small degree of success, but to the deaf any improvement i'll hearing power is of tremendous consequence To be able to hear shout or peal of thunder shows the deaf person what sound is, and helps him in modulating his voice in speaking.
 Lip Reading
 In these days nearly all deaf people learn to speak by studying the motions of lips, tongue. and larynx. and imitat i ing them Deaf children start language i lessions at kindergarten age, and learn to produce correctly words which they never hear. Because they do not hear their own voices they sometimes speok i in a guttural, suited manner. this man nerism being less noticeable when even a very little hearing is developed. Some authorities on speech-reading claim that the throatiness of the deaf is due to the teachers placing too much emphasis on use of the larynx in speech, and that the deaf can be taught to speak as naturally as nor mal- hearing persons.
 Speech reading is said to be similar to learning any foreign language. Diagrams and mirrors are used. A few words and syllables are studied at a time. The student watches himself or his teacher say over and over, ou may, they may they see" Some let ters are easily identified. Others. b, m, p, for instance, are difficult to distin- gGish because all three are made by closing the lips. B is really made in the throat, but when rapidly spoken the movement of the throat is scarcely ! noticeable. Whether the person talk ing says may, bay, or pay, therefore must be decided by the speech reader largely by the context. Yet on the whole speech reading is considered no more difficult to master than foreign 1 tongue-not so difficult as Chinese, perhaps. though harder than Spanish or French.
 Erucation of the deaf has been sys- 1 tematically promoted only in the past i century. Before that they were also speeches.. and were classed with idiots as incapable of learning to read ! or write. Now there are boarding schools and day schools for deaf chill I dren. and a few night schools for adults who lost their hearing since or WHO never DGIOT6 Hdd opportunity to attend a special school
 There is a national college for the deaf at Washington. where both the sign language and lipreading are used. Many deaf people, however, at tend universities all over the country and by sitting near enough to the pro- fessors they manage to read the lips. Shut off from the distractions of sound, they are capable of unusual power of concentration, and in spite of their handicap, often are graduated
 with honors.
 Besides the system or schools for
 the deaf, there are institutions and as-
 sociations for the purpose of helping
 them in various ways. The most fam
 ous of these is the Volta Bureau at Washington. After Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, the French Government gave him the Volta cleo
 trical prize Of $10.000 Bell who had
 been a teacher of the deaf, wrote al
 once to his mother telling her of his
 prize. He concluded And now we shall have money to teach speech to
 little deaf children
 Dr. Bells Bureau Dr. Bell founded the Volta Bureau to study the problems of the deaf, and to furnish information on matters re- prize money to start the Bureau, Dr
 Bell has contributed a million dollars toward it's upkeep.
 The last census showed that persons , totally deaf now enter almost any os-
 cupation. Farming and trades attract
 most of them, though many enter pro-
 fessions and few clerk in stores or : act as agents for commercial firms.
 The percentage of those engaged ir
 occupations is nearly as great as with
 hearing persons, showing that they arc
 no longer to be classed as objects o1 |, charity.
 3 From the status of defectives and I dependents, regarded as uncanny creat $ ures, the reaf have by specialized 5 education become so nearly norma , that you may do business with 2 { deaf mute" without realizing 1t.
 The chief impression you are likely ) to carry away from a conversatio : with the deaf person is that he watche. t your face with flattering attentiveness l You reflect that at last you have me ) a man who appreciates your conver sational abilities and admires your rus I ged features. The deaf are usually 3 popular because they do not talk z