Understanding Deafness

Deafness is a condition described as a disability involving auditory sensation and perception. Someone who is deaf is someone who can hardly hear sound. Someone who cannot understand speech and perceive everyday noise may also be considered deaf.

There are varying degrees of deafness, from mild to severe, and depending on the severity of the impairment, hearing aids or cochlear implants may be needed. Deafness can begin as a congenital defect or it can be a gradual disorder that starts sometime in a person’s life. It is often difficult to address hearing impairment that is already present at birth before a person begins to acquire language skills, as language development may be severely impaired without the listening facility working normally.

Deafness imposes difficulty in communication. People who are deaf cannot hear someone talking to them properly, and people talking to them usually have difficulty trying to express themselves to them. This issue is even magnified among those who have been deaf since birth because they have developed language techniques that are peculiar to normal individuals. Those who have been hard of hearing since birth cannot have the advantage of using hearing aids because these devices will not normally work for them.

Scientific efforts are still being employed to better understand deafness and to arrive at better means to help patients cope with it. There is no new treatment for tinnitus and hearing loss. Hearing aids and cochlear implants have been around to help people with hearing problems. They have advantages but only to some extent.

BBC – Health: Deafness and hearing problems: