top of page

Dr. Paddy’s Corner

- Building a Mountain -

Dr. Paddy Ladd, who coined the word DEAFHOOD, makes the call to recognize a great need to address long-standing negative associations, ideologies and beliefs/ attitudes by building a mountain of positive Deaf philosophies, creativity, politics, and so forth to overtake those long-standing views. The world experienced a brief resurgence of positive views on Deaf people in the 1960’s when linguists scientifically proved, what Deaf people have long known, that sign languages around the world are true languages in their own right.

This resurgence hit a snag after the 1970’s, when mainstreaming, cochlear implants and genetic engineering came on the scene, robbing Deaf people of a sense of their own existentialism. Thanks to Dr. Ladd's inspiration, Deafhood Foundation was founded to work on building that mountain by providing Deaf people and our allies mountain-building tools through activism, networking, outreach, education and grants.

We invite you to get to know Dr. Paddy through a collection of videos below (please note that English translations of these videos are not available).

Who is Dr. Paddy Ladd? (Part 1)

03:33

Who is Dr. Paddy Ladd? (Part 1)

It is an honor to post an interview with Paddy. Paddy is best known for writing a book "Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood". In order for us to discuss the interview and Deafhood in depth, the interview has been divided into 5 parts. This is first one and eachÂ part will be posted separately over the next two weeks. NOTE: Paddy signs in BSL and ASL.

Interview with Paddy Ladd: Part two

01:24

Interview with Paddy Ladd: Part two

Question: How did you coin the term Deafhood?

Interview with Paddy Ladd: part 3

03:15

Interview with Paddy Ladd: part 3

Question: What are your observations of the Deafhood movement the last 2 years?

Interview with Paddy Ladd: Part 4

02:36

Interview with Paddy Ladd: Part 4

Question: Question: Is the term Deafhood only applicable to the United Kingdom?

Interview with Paddy Ladd: Part 5

03:44

Interview with Paddy Ladd: Part 5

Question: Question: What do you forsee for the Deafhood movement? Note: Thank you Paddy for your willingness to be interviewed for this site. As we can see that many people enjoyed this series very much! Upward we go!

Experiencing Deafhood, SIGNALL II project

55:56

Trinity College Dublin

Experiencing Deafhood, SIGNALL II project

Experiencing Deafhood documentary was produced in conjunction with the Centre for Deaf Studies, Trinity College Dublin and the Centre for Community Engagement, University of Sussex as part of the SIGNALL II project. This documentary explores the concept of Deafhood, a term coined by Dr Paddy Ladd at the University of Bristol. This documentary showcases footage in Irish Sign Language (ISL) and British Sign Language (BSL) with English voiceovers in which we trace the educational, cultural identity and employment journeys of people from the Deaf community. This documentary was directed by Haaris Sheikh.