Rose Ayling-Ellis: Signs for Change review proof that the hearing world is as prejudiced as ever

The Strictly winner is a wonderful, hopeful presence – but the main takeaway of this courageously honest documentary is how little things have changed for the deaf community in decades

In my late teens and early 20s, which was the early 90s, I used to work with disabled children. It was a time when, although it was never put in such terms by anyone in authority, the rule of thumb seemed to be that if you had an invisible disability – such as deafness, say – you were expected to fit in with the “normal” world (it was also a time when such quote marks were rarely used). If you had a visible disability, you were expected to keep yourself hidden as much as possible so as not to upset anyone. The one thing both approaches had in common is that they very much weren’t about making the people with disabilities comfortable. Comfort, ease, the ability to move through the world without being made conscious of what you could and couldn’t do? These were the prerogative of “normal” people.

The main takeaway from Rose Ayling-Ellis: Signs for Change is how little things have changed in the 30 years since – though the existence of this documentary and the public profile of Ayling-Ellis herself shows we may yet hope for progress. Ayling-Ellis is a deaf actor best known for her two-year stint as Frankie in EastEnders, the soap’s first regular deaf character, and for winning 2021’s Strictly Come Dancing (with her hearing aid she can pick up some music, including the beat, in addition to sensing vibrations). She has naturally become a role model and figurehead for the deaf community. One mother, Katie, whose two-year-old son Alvie was diagnosed as deaf at seven weeks, speaks very movingly about what Rose meant to her as she wrestled with the sense of powerlessness the news had given her. “I’d been holding him and singing him to sleep every night. Had he ever even heard me? ... And then, suddenly, there you were – happy, confident, successful.”

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/wUvHsCY

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