Mr. Shane Hamilton:

I have a few deaf friends in mainstream school. The biggest thing I have noticed is that, unlike me and some of my friends in the deaf school, they feel a lot more alone. They are a lot more isolated. I have often had deaf friends who are in hearing schools comment to me that they are very upset because they do not have friends in their new school and they feel isolated. No one understands the language they are speaking and they have to learn a whole new language just to understand other people. They feel very isolated. That is a big theme. It really is a struggle for them. Even with all the assistance that technology in mainstream classrooms has given us nowadays, it does not help from the point of view of peer pressure that they have to keep up with their other classmates. There are a lot more barriers to them keeping up, and if they do not keep up they feel like they are failing, not just themselves but also their teachers, parents, and siblings.

Some of my deaf friends have siblings who are hearing. They can feel isolated even within their own families because their siblings are living wholly different lives from them. Their siblings have massive groups of friends, while this one person or these few people who are deaf and may have a very small group of friends feel they are not living up to the standards they want to set or that are set by their family members and friends.