What's that Pig Outdoors:
A Memoir of Deafness
by Henry Kisor At almost three and a half, young Hank became ill. Doctors did not know if he would live. Hank became deaf. Temporarily, he also lost his sense of balance. Kisor's mother decided to teach him to speak and to retain what speech he did have using the method of Miss Mirrielees. Kisor learned to read, lipread and speak well enough to be integrated into a hearing classroom. Through elementary school, high school, college, journalism school, and his work on various newspapers, Kisor has always been in the hearing culture. Culturally, he is a member of the hearing world; his wife, friends, coworkers, are all hearing.
But even a successful oralist has his problems and mishaps in the hearing world. Lipreading is never a sure thing- Kisor recognizes some words and guesses the rest. And 10% of the people he meets are impossible to lipread. His speech problems are also extant- while he can(at the time of this book's writing in 1990) go to Northwestern when his speech becomes unitelligible, to relearn his speech, speech therapy was not so easy to get when he was growing up. When deaf people were generally seen as stupid and incapable of integration, Kisor's success met with resistance from those with preconceived negative perceptions of deaf people, but Kisor succeeded despite them.
This book is for hearing people to understand more about what deaf people can acheive. It is about Kisor, an oralist, who tries not to be too political on the topic of oralism vs. ASL.
This story can also be read as a success story of a man who has overcome a communications disability. As he notes, deafness affects his ability to communicate.
Happy reading
