what is audism

Audism is a form of discrimination directed against deaf people, which may include those diagnosed as deaf from birth, or otherwise. It is an attitude based on pathological thinking that results in a negative stigma toward anyone who does not hear; like racism or sexism, audism judges, labels, and limits individuals on the basis of whether a person hears and speaks. Tom L. Humphries coined the term in his doctoral dissertation in 1975, but it did not start to catch on until Harlan Lane used it in his writing. There are different types of audism, including active audism, passive audism, overt audism, and covert audism. Audism reflects the medical view of deafness as a disability that must be fixed. It is rooted in the historical belief that deaf people were savages without language, equating language to humanity. Audism can be present among both hearing and deaf individuals. Examples of audism include refusing to explain to a deaf person why everyone around him is laughing, devoting a significant amount of instructional time for a deaf child to lipreading and speech therapy, rather than educational subjects, and looking at deafness as something to be fixed. The principles and ideas behind audism have been experienced by the deaf community for many centuries, but the term "audism" was first coined in 1975 by deaf scholar Tom Humphries in his unpublished essay.