Liam O’Dell: We are in desperate need of basic statistics about our Deaf community (BSL)

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You may or may not have seen that the Office for National Statistics recently published some fresh data on the number of people in England and Wales for whom British Sign Language (BSL) is their first or preferred language – courtesy of last year’s Census.

The figure is 21,635, up a fair bit from the more than 15,400 people tallied in the Census from 2011, though a fair way off the often-cited 150,000 figure given by the British Deaf Association (BDA).

It should be noted, however, that according to the BDA’s website, this UK-wide number is actually based on analysis of statistics solely pertaining to Scotland, because the question asked in England, Wales and Northern Ireland was “badly phrased”.

The ‘BSL users at home’ question from the 2011 Scottish Census means professionals such as interpreters and translators, who use BSL at work, are not included in this 150,000 statistic – unless they said they sign it at home, of course.

Though looking at this number again, can we really use the Scottish Census data and expand it out to cover the whole of the UK, as seems to be the case here?

Despite the recent Census release, charities are still sticking to the BDA’s figures – more specifically, the 87,000 people out of the aforementioned 150,000 who are Deaf signers.

deafPLUS wrote in a social media post: “We know there are more [than 21,000] and deafPLUS appreciate the work involved. However, we truly believe there are 87,000 deaf BSL users (British Deaf Association).”

Even the BDA themselves, in responding to the new Census figures, said analysis of 2011 data suggests “a figure of some 70,000 deaf signers across the UK […] could be considered more credible”.

“Nobody in our British Deaf community would believe that the signing population has increased by some 40% in a decade. What the updated figure shows is that the ONS has improved its ability to reach the BSL community.

“That is welcome, and shows what can be done through effective partnership,” said Rebecca Mansell, the BDA’s CEO.

There’s also the issue of how you even begin to ask a question about BSL signers. As others have pointed out to me in recent conversations, if you ask people about their “home language”, then you may well include hearing people who know BSL because of a Deaf partner or family member.

If you ask about a person’s “main” or “first” language in the hopes of getting a picture of the Deaf population – like last year’s England and Wales Census did – then you may well pick up hearing CODAs (that is, children of Deaf adults) in the final statistic.

While hearing people might be over-represented in datasets, it’s possible Deaf people might be underrepresented, thanks to all the nuances and accessibility issues around BSL and English.

As academic Graham Turner explained in a piece for The Limping Chicken back in March 2021: “If you ask ‘Is BSL your first language?’ then many deaf people will respond that they used English at home as children, because no-one in the family knew BSL – so it’s not exactly their first language.

“If you try ‘Is BSL your preferred language?’ then they may reply that they prefer different languages for different purposes. You can’t read emails in BSL, for example.”

Nor might you be able to read a whole Census in English.

Evidently, conversations around asking the right question, asking it accessibly, and getting it answered by the right people, needs to continue. We could do with some more robust data to strengthen our advocacy.

Take another example. In the context of mental health, you may well have seen the troubling statistic that Deaf people are twice as likely to experience mental health problems than hearing people – but where does that statistic come from?

In trying to track down a trusted source for the figure, I found an NHS blog post from January 2020, in which Deaf advisor Lenka Novakova wrote research from 1994 found “40% per cent of the deaf or hard of hearing population were affected by mental health issues, compared with 25% of the hearing population”.

Further digging brought me to a “prevalence study” into “psychiatric disorder in Deaf and hearing impaired children and young people” from that year, led by a Mr Peter Hindley from St George’s Hospital Medical School (now more commonly known as St George’s, University of London).

Once again, the source material paints a slightly different picture to the one relied upon by charities and news organisations.

A paragraph in the ‘discussion’ section of the paper reads: “Our findings suggest that the rate of psychiatric disorder in this population of Deaf and hearing impaired children (43-50.3%) is approximately one and a half times that of an equivalent inner city hearing population […] but without a control population we cannot judge the statistical significance of our findings.”

So not only is the percentage of the hearing population with a mental health problem not mentioned here, but the researchers themselves call the finding into question, given the lack of a wider dataset.

With all of this considered, you have to ask: why is there a lack of basic, concrete statistics about Deaf people? Where the hell is it all, and why isn’t there more of it?

All good questions, and I join the BDA in calling upon Craig Crowley, the new co-chair of the UK Government’s BSL Advisory Group, to look into securing more statistical research to establish such foundations.

With hard evidence about the presence of our community, and the challenges we can face, we can greater advocate for change. We need new numbers, stat.

Photo: Ollie Cole.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.