Importance of Project/Issue:
When you encounter a deaf, hard of hearing, or a deafblind person or community, what is your 
first thought that comes to mind? “Oh, I’m sorry you cannot hear?” or “You are deaf, but you 
can speak!” or “I’m sorry your child is deaf, they would be good candidates for a hearing aid or 
cochlear implant”, these thoughts are a form of Audism. 

What is Audism? Audism is an attitude based on pathological thinking that results in a negative 
stigma toward anyone who cannot hear. Just like any other ‘isms’, audism judges, labels, and 
limits individuals on the basis of whether they can hear or speak. Audism reflects on the 
medical perspective of deafness as a disability that must be fixed. Audism is based on a 
historical belief that deaf people are savages without language. Because many deaf people 
grew up in hearing families who did not learn to sign, Audism may be ingrained. Audist and the 
attitude can be among either hearing or deaf individuals.

Just like any other ‘isms’ that impacts different individuals on different levels, audism impacts 
the population of the deaf community. Deaf individuals struggle with social and economic 
justice, employment, access to mental health services, equality to education and equal rights. 
Deaf individuals are forced to be second class to hearing privileges and marginalized compared 
to hearing communities. Some of the behaviors and attitudes are not recognized and people 
may not acknowledge that they are contributing to Audism due to be unfamiliar with what 
audism is. However, Audism impacts the deaf community in a major way and that needs to 
change.

Skills, Competencies, &/or capacities learned:

• Communication Skills:
  Learned to translate the information that was gathered from research and putting it 
  together to form the presentation. 
  Drafting and editing was continuously throughout the project because information and 
  format was changing to make it better presentable.
• Management skills: 
  Increased my knowledge and experience by research, collaboration, and analyzing 
  materials and information of Audism. 
  Over time I have changed the layout of the presentation and brochure to strengthen the 
  information that can be used to present to society.

Competencies:

• Competency 3: Advance Human Rights and Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice:
  Audism applies to the rights of social, economic, and environmental justice. Audism impacts the deaf community in different ways as to on different levels. Part of the mission with DeafLEAD is to engage in practice of equal social justice, equal access to education, communication, mental health, and more. Providing resources and information on topics that could benefit and enhance equality for the deaf community.
• Competency 5: Engage in Policy Practice: 
  During this project, I was able identify a social issue at a local, state, and federal level 
  that impacts well-being, service delivery, and access to social services. Audism is seen on 
  all aspects of life, the impact is through physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels 
  of those who are within the deaf community.
• Competency 9: Evaluate Practice with Individuals, Families, Groups, Organizations, and 
  Communities:
  Before and after the presentations, I used pre- and post-evaluations to determine how 
  much the people knew about the term Audism, and what they learned after the 
  presentation. The post evaluation allowed me to better understand what information 
  could be more enhanced and how could I present the presentation better.