Learning to Communicate with the Deaf (Part I)

Who is a Deaf?

The choice of the word Deaf here is deliberate as the most common alternative, especially in academia, is which is those with hearing impairment. This refers to individual who as a result of a dysfunction in the organ of hearing, whether by accident or by nature, have difficulty in receiving auditory signal.

This group includes those who may have been born before they acquire speech or vocabularies and those who have acquired speech or vocabularies before losing their hearing.

Loss of hearing has often been misinterpreted as being being "deaf and dumb" but this is not true and they are not necessarily mute as some erroneously believe it to be.

Mode of Communication

Sign Language is the native language of the Deaf community and those who are Deaf. Just like every other languages, it has a divergent of regional varieties but all of which can be traced to Abbey Charles. Notable among varieties are American Sign Language (ASL), British Sign Language (BSL), Nigerian Sign Language (NSL) and many others.

Within the educational settings, a sub-variety known as the Sign Exact English (SEE) is a most often adopted as the means of communication to boost their vocabularies.