A Deaf Woman Remembers Public School

Alone in the Mainstream is author Gina Oliva's story of her personal experiences being the only hard of hearing child in the entire school. When she first went to school in 1955 as a kindergartner, she didn't know that she was different." But when the other students reacted to music, Oliva didn't move. She began to feel alone because she couldn't communicate easily with her classmates, and because none of them had a hearing loss like hers. It wasn't until she attended Gallaudet University that Oliva discovered that her experience was common among mainstreamed deaf students.

Her experiences are combined with responses from the Solitary Mainstream Project, a survey Oliva conducted of deaf and hard of hearing adults who attended public school. She matched her findings with current research on deaf children in public schools and confirmed that hearing teachers are ill-prepared to teach deaf children. They don't know much about hearing loss, and they frequently underestimate deaf children. This book adds emotional weight to the conviction that students need to be able to communicate freely, and they also need to know that they are not alone. [Gina A. Oliva; (2004) 207 pages; soft cover]