Frequently asked questions

No. Few children are totally deaf. Most have some hearing on some frequencies at certain volumes. There are 3 types of deafness, each with different causes and implications:

• Conductive deafness. This is the most common type. It means that sound cannot pass efficiently through the outer and middle ear to the cochlea and audiotory nerve.
• Sensori-neural deafness (or nerve deafness). This usually means that the cochlea (inner ear) is not processing the sound effectively.
• Mixed deafness. Where a child has a mixture of conductive and nerve deafness.

There are many reasons why children are born deaf or lose their hearing later on:

• Conductive deafness is often caused by blockages such as wax in the ear canal or fluid in the middle ear - commonly known as Glue Ear.
• Sensori-neural deafness: Often the cause is unknown, but hereditary factors are often present. Deafness may be passed down in families even if there is no apparent history of deafness. It can sometimes be caused by infectious diseases such as rubella, mumps, measles, or meningitis. It may be due to a shortage of oxygen in the bloodstream at birth, or some other birth trauma. Premature babies are more at risk of having a hearing loss.
• Mixed deafness can be caused by a combination of the above.

Late diagnosis can have a devastating impact on a deaf child's ability to acquire language and communication skills. It is essential that deafness is diagnosed as possible after birth. By the age of three, a hearing child will enjoy a vocabulary of 700 words, whilst a deaf child the same age with undetected hearing loss will know less than 25 words.

The NDCS is at the forefront of the campaign for the introduction of universal neo-natal screening. This should be rolled out across the entire UK by 2004.

An estimated 840 babies are born annually with a permanent, significant hearing loss. Half of these remain undiagnosed by 18 months, and a quarter by the age of three and a half. 80% of children under eight experience temporary deafness caused by glue ear.

Terminology is important. Deaf people will describe their deafness differently, and each may have their own preference on what they consider to be acceptable to describe their own particular hearing loss.
Terms which may be acceptable to deaf and hard of hearing people include:

‘deaf’
The NDCS uses the word ‘deaf’ to mean any range of hearing loss. This can be used as general term to describe people over the whole range of hearing loss.

'Deaf'
With a capital D, this usually refers to people who may consider themselves to be members of the Deaf community and to be part of a cultural or linguistic minority. Most members of the Deaf community will use British Sign Language as their first or preferred language.

'deafened'
This term may be used to describe someone who became profoundly deaf as an adult, either suddenly or progressively, after having acquired spoken and written language. A deafened person gets little benefit from a hearing aid and relies mainly on lipreading for communication. Most deafened people identify mainly with the hearing world, although they may feel lost between the two worlds.

‘hard of hearing’
This term may be used to describe a person who has some level of hearing loss, mainly older people. A hard of hearing person may have had a hearing loss since childhood, or have acquired it later on in life. The majority of hard of hearing people communicate using speech, possibly with a hearing aid and lipreading. Many hard of hearing people identify culturally with hearing people, although this may depend on the age at which they lost their hearing.

'hearing loss'
This term is used to describe the level of someone's hearing loss.

'partially hearing'
This term may be used to describe a person who has a moderate to severe hearing loss.

'partially deaf'
This term is used generally to describe a person with some degree of hearing loss, usually moderate or severe.

'hearing-impaired'
This is a general term that can be used to describe a deaf or hard of hearing person. It is not acceptable to all deaf and hard of hearing people, as it may seem to carry the stigma of 'handicap'.

Terms which are not acceptable to the majority of deaf people include:

‘deaf and dumb’ or ‘deaf mute’
Not only are these terms perceived as offensive by deaf people, but they are also an extremely inaccurate description of the effects of deafness. The word 'dumb' implies stupidity, ‘mute’ suggests unable to communicate. This is wrong. Deaf people are neither more nor less intelligent than anyone else, and are able to communicate.

'handicapped'
As the phrase 'Handicapped' comes from the term 'cap in hand', there are many negative implications in describing a deaf person in this way. It is also a term that many disabled, as well as deaf, people find offensive. For these reasons it should be avoided.

The term ‘cure’ should be avoided, as it is highly misleading. Cochlear implants are electronic devices that are implanted in the cochlea (inner ear) of people who are profoundly deaf to give them some hearing.

Their effectiveness will vary between individuals. In the UK there are 3,300 people with a cochlear implant, of whom approximately 2,000 are children (source: HM Government Medical Devices Agency).

As well as hearing aids, which are becoming ever more sophisticated, there is a wide range of environmental aids to help deaf people be aware of sounds going on around them. Some of these include:

• Amplified phones, textphones, mobile phones, and videophones.
• Alarm clocks that flash or shake under the pillow.
• Doorbells and phones that flash to alert users.
• Special smoke alarms and vibrating pagers to tell the user what’s going on in the home. When a transmitter connected to a typical household device is activated the pager vibrates.
• Loops systems and listening aids to help deaf people hear – for instance television or music, in public places, shops, at work or in the home. These aids help focus sound to the hearing aid.
• Captioned and signed videos.

This technology may help give deaf people greater independence. It is an individual thing and will depend on the level of deafness, age and needs. 

There are many different methods of communication - natural aural approach; structured oral approach; lipreading/speechreading; Sign Bi-lingualism; British Sign Language; Fingerspelling; Sign Supported English; Signed English; Total Communication; Paget Gorman Signed Speech; Cued Speech; Signalong and Makaton. There is also much debate about the different methods of communication available to deaf people in the deaf community, and between professionals working with deaf people. Some deaf people prefer to use one method, others may use a combination of them.

Communication is a vital life skill. For a deaf child, acquiring language skills and learning to communicate with the hearing world around them can often be an uphill struggle. So making the right choice about which method or approach to use with a deaf child is crucial. Like all parents, parents of deaf children will want their child to communicate well, so it is important to consider their needs carefully.

NDCS believes in the principle of informed choice and its specialist team of advisers is able to guide families through the different communication options.

Cultural deafness is a term used by those people who consider themselves to be members of the ‘Deaf’, with a capital ‘D’, community and to be part of a cultural or linguistic minority. They do not consider themselves disabled. A culturally deaf person will usually have been born deaf, or have become deaf before learning spoken language. Sign language will be the preferred method of communication.

There are a great number of organisations, groups and charities with a focus on deafness. To give you some idea of the numbers there are 80 affiliated to the UK Council on Deafness (UkCoD), an umbrella organisation for the deaf charity sector.

The reasons that there are so many vary and are complicated. Many of these organisations exist to represent the interests of deaf people from a local area, region, or ethnic grouping, or those that favour a particular communication method.

Others are associations of professionals or primarily volunteer led. The range of organisations reflects the rich diversity of the deaf community.