What is Audism?
Audism is the discrimination and belief that individuals who are Deaf, DeafBlind, or Hard- of- Hearing are less competent than individuals who are not.
Examples of Audism
- Assuming that Deaf, DeafBlind, or Hard-of-Hearing individuals are incompetent
- Pitying Deaf, DeafBlind, or Hard-of-Hearing individuals
- Speaking or communicating in a patronizing attitude to Deaf, DeafBlind, or Hard-of-Hearing individuals
- Refusing to use sign language or captioning
- Telling a person “Never mind” or “I’ll tell you later” when asked what is going on
Audism in Workforce
- Low expectations of Deaf, DeafBlind, or Hard-of-Hearing employees
- Using offensive or insensitive language and/or mocking gestures and expressions
- Excluding people in conversations
- Having unfair hiring practices for qualified candidates
- Not providing reasonable accommodations
Ways to Fight Audism
- Learn about and support Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard-of- Hearing communities and organizations
- Advocate to provide interpreters and captioning
- Support the use of assistive listening devices
- Include everyone in conversations, even the informal ones
- Physically move around to improve communication access
- Find best practices for providing reasonable accommodations
- Promote the use of transcripts and CART captioning during meetings
Be an Ally
- Provide communication access in all forms
- Learn about Dinner Table Syndrome