Communicating With the Hard of Hearing
People who are hard of hearing (deaf) are identified as individuals who cannot recognise sound frequencies to the extent of their fellow peers. Deafness varies between individuals, as does the causes and the resultant effect it has on their lives. It’s a known fact that many deaf people go about their day with little or no issues at all, however the general public should be aware that there are methods that they can use to make communication with a deaf person easier without having to learn sign language.
Hearing loss (or partial loss) can occur at any stage during life, including two time zones defined as pre-lingual and post-lingual; before or after they learn a language. When children are born deaf, or lose their hearing pre-lingual, many are taught sign language first, followed by lip reading later on it their development. Learning a language for the first time whilst deaf can be a tedious process, however it is taught in a similar way; by mimicking the person teaching you. Just as a hearing person would copy sounds, deaf children copy actions to convey meaning. For the ease of communication with hearing people, it is useful for a deaf person to learn lip reading as many hearing people simply do not know how to sign. Also, for those learning sign language, understanding between the two communicating can be increased by an amount of speech/lip reading.
Deaf Schools can cater for children who have little or no hearing by the age that they start primary school. BSL (British Sign Language) is taught at many schools; however some schools concentrate mainly on developing speech therapy and lip reading techniques. Only 40% of speech is visible, so training is required to be able to understand each individual facial and lip expression.
Very few deaf people can rely entirely on lip reading as a form of communicating, so many use a set of complimentary hand signals, known as ‘cued speech’. Cued speech includes eight hand shapes in four different positions near the mouth to clarify the lip patterns of normal speech. By making the speech structure and vocabulary visible, children can acquire the basis of a language very quickly. With this method, babies and young children are able to see the meaning of the words as clearly as hearing babies and children can hear them.