Author Archive: Gina Oliva

Gina Oliva is a retired academic who grew up as the only hard of hearing child in all of her K-12 classrooms in the public schools in a wealthy Connecticut town. She attended a prestigious small college for her bachelor's degree and Gallaudet for her masters, and she has a doctorate from the University of Maryland. Her first language is English, she has used a hearing aid since age 5, and began learning American Sign Language as a young adult at Gallaudet University, where she spent her long, productive, and rewarding career. She is best known for her earlier work bringing group exercise classes to the Deaf Community with the development of Visual Cues, and her more recent advocacy work for those who have been or still are "alone in the mainstream."