Source – Disability Resource Center
Perspectives on Deafness
Developed and disseminated by the National Center on Deafness California State University, Northridge
What does it mean to be deaf?
The significant consequence of deafness is being cut off from the means of acquiring and transmitting spoken language that most people enjoy. As a result, communication is affected. The majority of deaf people are born into hearing families. Often, deafness among these children goes undetected for a long time and as a result, these children must learn, rather than acquire, a first language. The major communication difficulty for most deaf people is not having a language frame of reference when they are learning to speak, write, or speechread.
Normal hearing allows the enjoyment of engaging in natural spoken conversation, listening to radio announcements, understanding news or entertainment programs on television, catching conversational tidbits through eavesdropping, and sharing the latest joke. These types of input which hearing people may take for granted must be accessed by deaf or hard of hearing individuals through sign communication, interpreters and closed captioning for them to be equally sophisticated about their environment.
Deafness
The way in which deaf and hard of hearing individuals interact with you and with their environment is dependent on many factors:
Natural intelligence
Personality
Family climate
Age at onset of deafness
Language background
Degree of hearing loss
Communication skills
YOUR attitude toward them
Without understanding these factors, people may ask: “How do deaf people feel about…?” “What do deaf people do for fun?” “Do deaf people like to…?” In light of all these variables which influence a person’s uniqueness, it seems clear that we cannot make generalizations about “deaf people” as a group. People deal with their deafness and their worlds in their own way. Each deserves the dignity of being openly and willingly approached as an individual with unique qualities and skills.Understanding the Jargon
There are many specialized terms related to the field of deafness. A few expressions used frequently and often misunderstood or misused include:
Deaf/Deafness: a condition in which perceivable sounds (including speech) have no meaning for ordinary life purposes.
Hard of Hearing: a condition in which the sense of hearing is defective but functional for some ordinary life purposes (usually with the help of a hearing aid).
Residual Hearing: the amount of hearing a person has; the ability to understand speech varies with the residual hearing of the individual.
Deaf-mute or Deaf and Dumb: Derogatory terms describing a person without hearing or speech. It associates lack of hearing and speech with stupidity, a theory that has been disproved by many brilliant, non-speaking deaf people. This phrase is no longer acceptable in describing deaf people.
Congenital Deafness: deafness occurring at birth.
Adventitious Deafness: deafness occurring sometime after birth.
Prelingual Deafness: deafness occurring before the acquisition of language (usually before three years of age). Such a person has no language frame of reference for English when learning to speak, write, or speechread.
Postlingual Deafness: deafness occurring after the acquisition of language (usually after three years of age). In most cases, persons who have lost their hearing after this age have a relatively strong language base.
Late Deafened: deafness occurring during adulthood. In most cases, deafness has occurred after the completion of high school.
Cultural Deafness: the way in which many members of the Deaf Community view themselves, within hearing society but separate from hearing culture. Deaf culture can be delineated by social customs (identifying oneself as from a school for the deaf rather than a city or a state or unique greeting rituals), shared experiences and a reverence for American Sign Language (ASL). Membership in the Deaf culture is a source of pride for many deaf and hard of hearing people.