This month’s featured artwork is titled Blah Blah Blah.  It’s a painting about meaning deafness, which is also called Receptive Language Processing Disorder and is common in those with Semantic Pragmatic Language Disorder (which a majority with autism also have).  Receptive Language Processing Disorder can be due to all kinds of things, including Receptive Aphasia, Verbal Agnosia, Auditory Verbal Agnosia. I relate to both Verbal Agnosia and Auditory Verbal Agnosia but I used to be relatively meaning deaf to my own speech too, which occurs in receptive aphasia.

I was tested for deafness since age 2 and at age 9 when still tested for deafness, my meaning deafness began to be understood (in addition to my diagnosis with autism, I have a formal diagnosis of receptive language processing disorder) and my environment slowed down all speech, spoke more telegraphically and used representational objects and gestural signing.  This, together with being put onto zinc, C, multivitamin-minerals and beginning to eat real meals for the first time, opened up a world of language with meaning and I jumped from around 10% receptive language to about 50%, enough to guess what people were talking about.

So the painting of Blah Blah shows how perplexing blah blah is to someone meaning deaf (the blah blah is the floaty sound patches in the air next to him), and also how one is left a world apart unless people help speech to be more intelligible.  The somewhat blank look on the character’s face is the expression I usually have when listening and trying to understand.  Sadly, I’m then sometimes accused of not listening because I don’t show active facial expressions whilst listening!  I’ve even been told this makes me selfish because I’m not emotionally showing I’m listening.  Good grief!  If only they could walk in my shoes for a week.

Since my 30s I’m only 30% meaning deaf these days though this can go to 50%, 70% even 90% under challenging circumstances.  At least the hearing impaired have a shared sign language.  I’m fluent in gestural signing and use it as a public speaker and as lead singer and poet with Donna and The Aspinauts, but the thing about ‘home sign’ is that whilst its roughly understandable by those who use deaf signing, its unique to each person who has developed it.  Still, I can follow the home sign of most other people who’ve developed their own and its much easier to follow blah blah blah when people are showing their words.

The painting of Blah Blah Blah is a pair to the painting of Cat People which expresses the reality of Exposure Anxiety.  I rarely do faces in my paintings (I’m faceblind so I’m known for my faceless works) so this pair are pretty rare.

Hope you enjoyed the painting.

Warmly,

Donna Williams *)

author, artist, singer songwriter, screenwriter

http://www.donnawilliams.net