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Section One: Ways of Describing Deaf People
Objectives:
You should be able to ....
- Explain which terms are unacceptable for describing deaf people and why
- Explain which terms should be used instead
- Identify when to use each term, and for whom
Here are some ways in which deaf people are often described
- Cloth-ears or deaf-as-a-post
- Deaf / deaf
- Deafie
- Deaf and dumb
- Deafened
- Deaf mute
- Disabled
- Handicapped
- Hard of hearing
- Hearing impaired
- Partially deaf
- Partially hearing
The following are unacceptable ways of describing deaf people
- Cloth-ears or deaf-as-a-post
- Deafie
- Deaf and dumb
- Deaf mute
- Handicapped
- Disabled
Be careful about using the following terms:
- hearing impaired
- partially deaf
- partially hearing
There are 4 main groups of deaf people
- Deaf
- Deafened
- Hard of hearing
- Deafblind
Deaf
- Usually born deaf, or became deaf at an early age
- Prefer to use sign language
- A member of the Deaf community and culture
Deafened
- People have become deaf during their adult life
- Usually use spoken language and lipreading to communicate
- Identify more with the hearing world, but may feel isolated from the hearing
world
Hard of hearing
- May have a range of hearing loss from mild to severe
- Prefers to communicate through use of spoken language and lipreading
- Identify with the hearing world
- Majority of people who are deaf are hard of hearing
- Most of these are older people
Deafblind
- People with both a hearing loss and a visual loss
- May be born deafblind, or may become deafblind
- May be part of the Deaf world or part of the hearing world
- Large number of older people with dual loss
Don't jump to conclusions ...
- deaf people do not always fit neatly into one of these 'boxes'
Section Two: Statistics
Objectives
You should be able to ....
- State how many deaf people there are in the UK
- State how many of these are:
- Deaf
- deafened
- hard-of-hearing
- deafblind
- children
Total number of deaf people
- approximately 8.7 million people in the UK with a significant hearing loss
- that's about 1 in 7 of the population
Hard of hearing
- There are about 8.5 million people in the UK who are hard of hearing
- 6 million of these are over 60 years old
- It is particularly difficult to get an accurate picture of how many hard
of hearing people there are in the UK
Deafened
- There are about 120,000 deafened people in the UK
Deaf
- There are about 50,000 people in the UK who prefer to use British Sign Language
to communicate
Deaf children
- About 3 in every 1,000 children are born deaf
- 1 in 1,000 of these is born with a severe of profound deafness
- There are about 23,000 deaf children in the UK
- 90% (9 out of 10) of deaf children are born to hearing parents
Deafblind
- There are about 23,000 Deafblind people in the UK
- There are far more older people who have a dual sensory loss but are not
included in these figures
Section Three: Degree of deafness
Objectives
You should be able to ....
- Explain the differences between people with a:
- mild deafness
- moderate deafness
- severe deafness
- profound deafness
- Explain some of the effects their deafness could have on their lives
- Explain the differences between a high and a low frequency deafness
Mild deafness
A person with a mild deafness may ...
- Have some difficulty understanding people, especially in noisy situations
- Benefit from a hearing aid and use lipreading
- No longer hear quiet sounds or most commonly, no longer to be able to hear
high pitched sounds such as /f/ /s/ and /th/
Moderate deafness
A person with a moderate deafness may ...
- Have difficulty understanding speech without a hearing aid
- Need assistance to use a telephone - for example need an amplified telephone
or inductive coupler
- May miss out on a significant number of speech sounds and need to use lipreading
Severe deafness
A person with a severe deafness may ...
- have difficulty understanding speech even with a hearing aid
- rely more on lipreading
- not hear louder noises such as traffic
- find it difficult to use a phone, even with amplification, and may use a
textphone
- if they were born deaf use sign language
Profound deafness
A person with a profound deafness may ...
- gain little or no benefit from hearing aids
- rely heavily on lipreading
- use sign language
- be unable to use a telephone, even with amplification, and may use a textphone
- not hear very loud sounds such as an aircraft
High frequency deafness
- affects the high-pitched sounds such as the consonants
- makes speech difficult to understand
- is more common than low frequency deafness
Low frequency deafness
- affects the low-pitched sounds such as the vowels
- speech is easier to understand than with a high frequency deafness, as it
is easier to fill-in missing vowels
- is less common
Recruitment
- is where a person who has a hearing loss also has a lowered tolerence to
sound
- sounds that do not seem too loud to other people may be painful for a person
with recruitment
- makes it more difficult to use hearing aids and to cope with noisy situations
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