I Can Hear You Whisper Book Summary - I Can Hear You Whisper Book explained in key points

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I Can Hear You Whisper summary

Name: I Can Hear You Whisper
Rating: 3.9 (10 reviews)
Author: Lydia Denworth

Lydia Denworth

An Intimate Journey Through the Science of Sound and Language

3.9 (10 ratings)

15 mins

Brief summary

I Can Hear You Whisper by Lydia Denworth is a remarkable journey of a mother studying science to better understand and engage with her deaf son. It is a moving story about the importance of sound, language, and connection in human life.

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Language Culture

Table of Contents

I Can Hear You Whisper
Summary of 7 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 7

What’s in it for me? Learn about the rich history of deafness and deaf culture.

Can you imagine trying to have a conversation with a friend and not being able to hear a single word he’s saying? Well, for deaf and hard of hearing people across the globe, this is part of their everyday reality.

But, of course, this fact hasn’t held back the deaf community. Over the course of centuries, deaf people have developed their own highly complex language and culture to play a fully functioning role in society.

However, with the development of more and more precise medical apparatus designed to “cure” deafness, this rich culture might be under threat. These blinks take at look at such developments, how they impact the deaf community and whether or not it’s right – or necessary – to eliminate deafness at all.

They also show you

why some hearing aids make people sound like Donald Duck;
what hearing has to do with your development; and
why the telephone was beneficial for deaf people.

Hearing is a complex process that doesn’t function perfectly in everyone.

Most people take their ability to hear for granted. Hearing, like so many other physiological functions, is a highly complex process.

So how is sound created and how do our ears process it?

Noise is made when molecules in the air vibrate and create a sound wave. Our outer ear catches sound waves and works like a funnel, sending them into the ear canal. The ear canal then amplifies them and sends them onto the eardrum.

When a sound hits the eardrum, it vibrates and changes from acoustic energy into mechanical energy. The mechanical energy then moves through three tiny bones called the hammer, anvil and stirrup, and enters the inner ear.

Once in the inner ear, the sound enters the fluid-filled cochlea, where it changes into hydro-energy. Tiny hairs in the cochlea detect movements in the fluid and generate electrical impulses in the brain, causing you to “hear” the sound.

But this process doesn’t function properly for everyone: while most people can hear sounds within a range of 20 to 20,000 Hertz (Hz), other people’s range is much smaller or nonexistent.

Life is very different for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. If you can’t hear people speak, for instance, you have to rely on completely different methods of communication.

That’s why such a vibrant culture has developed around deafness. The deaf community has had to come up with alternative ways for a lot of things hearing people rely on their hearing for. Deafness shouldn’t necessarily be considered a lack of something: it’s an identity in its own right.

Language development is connected with hearing, but deaf children possess the same language development skills.

Have you ever wondered why humans are the only species to have developed language?

Scientists are still researching this question, but experts widely agree that babies are born with an innate ability to learn language. They understand some universal grammar rules and principles, like consonants, vowels, nouns, verbs, pitches, intonation and phrases as building blocks.

The debate on how to best educate deaf people is centuries old.

The concept of deafness has been poorly understood throughout history, and hearing people often assumed that deaf people were just less intelligent. Even Aristotle thought that deaf people were incapable of learning and using logical reasoning skills.

We’ve come a long way since then. In fact, the debate about using sign language or oral language has been going on for centuries.

New scientific understanding of hearing allowed scientists to develop new hearing aid technology.

As the deaf community began to assert their identity more in the twentieth century, something else also changed: scientists began developing tools to “cure” deafness.

Early experiments were aimed at repairing damaged ears. For a long time, scientists lacked the technology and understanding to do much for people with hearing difficulties. That started to change in the middle of the century, thanks in large part to the invention of the telephone.

Hearing and non-hearing children need time to develop the neural pathways that allow them to understand language.

We’ve seen how sound is processed in hearing people, but what about in deaf people?

Both hearing and deaf children need experiences to develop their neural pathways. Babies are born with around 78 billion neurons and even more are generated as the children get older. Neural pathways, however, can only be formed with new experiences.

Cochlear implants are still imperfect and controversial.

The first cochlear implants were only given to adults. That changed in the 1990s, however, when it was decided that they could be given to children as young as two.

This sparked a lot of debate. Many people questioned the necessity of cochlear implant surgery, as the deaf community had earned a lot more respect and recognition by that time. The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, for example, forbade all forms of discrimination toward people with disabilities. New tools for deaf people, like TV captions and dial assistants, had suddenly become the norm.

Cochlear implants were once expected to revolutionize deaf education, but results have been mixed.

When cochlear implants were developed, they seemed poised to revolutionize education for the deaf and hard of hearing. Such people had long suffered in traditional education systems. Many only managed to reach a fourth grade level of reading and writing.

Deaf education existed before implants, however. In 1975, the United States passed Public Law 94-142, which guaranteed free and suitable education to all children, so deaf children had been attending regular schools long before cochlear implants. Lots of schools staffed interpreters or teachers who specialized in education for the deaf.

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What is I Can Hear You Whisper about?

I Can Hear You Whisper (2014) is about human communication, and the phenomenon and culture of deafness. Hearing is a complex process that doesn’t function the same way for everyone, and those who are deaf or hard of hearing have developed alternative methods of communication, around which a special culture has grown. These blinks give an overview of that culture and show that it’s just as rich as any other.

Best quote from I Can Hear You Whisper

Helen Keller famously said that being blind cut you off from things, but being deaf cut you off from people.

—Lydia Denworth

Who should read I Can Hear You Whisper?

Anyone interested in the science or culture of deafness
Sociology or medical students

About the Author

Lydia Denworth is writer whose work has been in the New York Times, Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal. She served as an adjunct professor of journalism at Fordham University and Long Island University. I Can Hear You Whisper is her second best-selling book.

Categories with I Can Hear You Whisper

Science Health & Nutrition Communication Skills

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