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MYTH: All deaf people are mute. FACT: Some deaf people speak very well and clearly; others do not because their hearing loss prevented them from learning spoken language. Deafness usually has little effect on the vocal chords, and very few deaf people are truly mute.
Deaf people have two main ways of communicating with others – lip reading and sign language. Learn more about these two forms of communication below. Deaf people may not be able to hear what you're saying, but that doesn't mean they can't understand you.
People who are hard of hearing usually communicate through spoken language and can benefit from hearing aids, cochlear implants, and other assistive devices as well as captioning. 'Deaf' people mostly have profound hearing loss, which implies very little or no hearing. They often use sign language for communication.
Primarily though, most completely deaf people think in sign language. Similar to how an “inner voice” of a hearing person is experienced in one's own voice, a completely deaf person sees or, more aptly, feels themselves signing in their head as they “talk” in their heads.
Most deaf people, especially those deaf from birth, don't subvocalize when they read. They can't associate sounds with words like hearing people. So instead, they rely on associating words with images or their equivalent in American Sign Language (ASL) to comprehend them.
Some Deaf people have an auditory component in their dreams
If people become Deaf after the age of five, they will probably have an auditory component in their dreams, even after a severe hearing loss. This might range from short auditory flashes to complete auditory recreations.
A deaf person does not have a functioning inner ear. A cochlear implant tries to replace the function of the inner ear by turning sound into electrical energy. This energy can then be used to stimulate the cochlear nerve (the nerve for hearing), sending "sound" signals to the brain.
Thus, a majority of deaf children (and deaf adults) are not able to get much meaning from print. However, some profoundly deaf individuals do learn to read, and are as proficient at reading as their normally hearing peers.
Hearing-impaired (also referred to as deaf) people think in terms of their “inner voice”. Some of them think in ASL (American Sign Language), while others think in the vocal language they learned, with their brains coming up with how the vocal language sounds.
In the past, an effort was made to establish an Esperanto for the deaf, but that met with even less success. This is hardly surprising, because deaf people nevertheless manage to understand each other.
Deaf people use facial expressions while they are using sign language to express their own emotions or to describe the emotions of others, through the use of the same range of emotional facial expressions used naturally by the general population e.g. happiness, anger, sadness etc.
Because there is no such thing as “whispering” in the deaf community, people are very open and easily share information. It is considered rude to temporarily leave a meeting or social gathering and not tell another person in the room where you are going.
Musicians with hearing loss often use the vibration of their instrument, or the surface to which it is connected, to help them feel the sound that they create, so although they may not be able to hear, d/Deaf people can use the vibrations caused by musical sounds to help them 'listen' to music.
27) — Deaf people sense vibration in the part of the brain that other people use for hearing — which helps explain how deaf musicians can sense music, and how deaf people can enjoy concerts and other musical events.
Have you ever wondered how Deaf people wake up in the morning? The most natural way is from the sun itself. Leave curtains open to shine through windows to brighten up the room and Deaf people can sense the lighting in their sleep. Some have their own internal clock that wakes them up.
Air pressure sensations, like if someone boxed my ears with their hands, are painful even in the deaf ear. Loud volume levels, however, are not painful.
Additionally, listeners who are deaf in one ear may enjoy stereo sound that can't be heard with traditional in-ears. Bone conduction headphones give certain listeners a sense of hearing that may otherwise be unavailable to them.
Most hearing people experience their own voice in a silent way when thinking, which is also called “internal monologue”. Similarly, most Deaf people see pictures, ASL signs, or sometimes printed words. They see or feel their “inner signing”.
Some blind people see full visual scenes while they dream, like sighted people do. Others see some visual images but not robust scenes. Others yet do not have a visual component to their dreams at all, although some researchers debate the degree to which this is true.
Although it may seem counterintuitive, people who are deaf or hard of hearing frequently have insomnia. According to studies, two-thirds of patients with hearing loss have insomnia. Psychological distress, according to scientists, could be one of the causes of sleep loss. Insomnia and depression frequently coexist.
Reading presents a significant challenge for individuals who are born deaf because they cannot hear the language that is encoded by print. The factors that lead to skilled reading for deaf individuals are currently under debate and not well understood.
For deaf people, "a sneeze is what it should be... something that just happens", says Swinbourne in his article. He even attempts to describe what an achoo-free deaf sneeze sounds like: "[There is] a heavy breath as the deep pre-sneeze breath is taken, then a sharper, faster sound of air being released."
Can a deaf person hear their heartbeat? Nobody can hear their own heartbeat without something like a stethoscope, which wouldn't work for a totally deaf person. When you think you're hearing your heartbeat, you're actually just feeling it.