USAToday Tuesday July 10, 2001

[Guest guest]

Hearing-impaired find a friend in IM

By USA TODAY

Instant messaging, which has become a major concern of many parents, has been a blessing for some teens and their families -- particularly among the hearing-impaired.

''If there ever was a good time to be deaf, it's now,'' says Kathleen Bostick of Plano, Texas, whose daughter , 17, has been hard of hearing since birth and enjoys a rich circle of friends -- hearing and deaf -- thanks to the Net.

By using instant messaging (IM) -- which puts old-fashioned text-phone technology for the deaf to shame, the Bosticks say -- 's social life has grown significantly in the past three years.

''It's faster and easier. With a phone, you have to go through a person, and it's hard to get close to someone through another person,'' says.

Communicating regularly with non-hearing and hearing peers is essential to developing good social networks, says Davila, CEO of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology.

''Online communication facilitates this in ways that have exceeded our expectations,'' and IM, e-mail and chat have, Davila says, ''broadened the scope of social contacts that deaf teens can maintain . . . (and) reduced the disability of deafness as a hindrance when communicating over distances.''

''Communication for the deaf has always been somewhat stifled, not only among themselves but within the hearing world. This bridges the gap,'' says Kathleen, who often IMs from work. ''Online, no one knows that they are deaf. They become a part of the hearing world the minute they sign on.''

Earlier this month, and about 10 other deaf teens, mostly from the Fort Worth, Plano and Denton areas, met at a theme park after using IM to plan the daylong outing. ''IM lets us be much more independent,'' she says.

Even though often meets new friends first online, her mother isn't overly concerned about those ''strangers.''

''They'll say, 'I'll introduce you to so-and-so online.' It's more of a referral kind of thing,'' Kathleen says. has 57 friends on her list with whom she IMs, and most, she says, are hearing-impaired friends who live far away.

Recently, used IM to become reacquainted with a preschool chum from another state. Kids ''love finding that connection,'' Kathleen says. ''There's no way she would have been able to find Amber if not for the technology.''

Kathleen knows that unscrupulous strangers, who may claim to be deaf teens, solicit her daughter. says, ''I just block them.''

Adds Kathleen: ''You train them to know what's good or bad and not to get sucked in.''