Hearing loss is a partial or total inability to hear. Hearing loss may be present at birth or acquired at any time afterwards. Hearing loss may occur in one or both ears. In children, hearing problems can affect the ability to acquire spoken language, and in adults it can create difficulties with social interaction and at work. Hearing loss can be temporary or permanent. Hearing loss related to age usually affects both ears and is due to cochlear hair cell loss. In some people, particularly older people, hearing loss can result in loneliness. Deaf people usually have little to no hearing.
A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted neuroprosthetic device to provide a person with moderate to profound sensorineural hearing loss a modified sense of sound. CI bypasses the normal acoustic hearing process to replace it with electric signals which directly stimulate the auditory nerve. A person with a cochlear implant receiving intensive auditory training may learn to interpret those signals as sound and speech. However, one third of deaf children do not develop language if they are on a CI program alone and have no sign language input.
The Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services (DARS) was a Texas state agency that was part of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. The agency worked with Texans with disabilities and children with developmental delays to improve the quality of their lives and to enable their full participation in society.
Lip reading, also known as lipreading or speechreading, is a technique of understanding speech by visually interpreting the movements of the lips, face and tongue when normal sound is not available. It relies also on information provided by the context, knowledge of the language, and any residual hearing. Although lip reading is used most extensively by deaf and hard-of-hearing people, most people with normal hearing process some speech information from sight of the moving mouth.
Signing Exact English is a system of manual communication that strives to be an exact representation of English vocabulary and grammar. It is one of a number of such systems in use in English-speaking countries. It is related to Seeing Essential English (SEE-I), a manual sign system created in 1945, based on the morphemes of English words. SEE-II models much of its sign vocabulary from American Sign Language (ASL), but modifies the handshapes used in ASL in order to use the handshape of the first letter of the corresponding English word. The four components of signs are handshape, orientation, location, and movement.
Unilateral hearing loss (UHL) is a type of hearing impairment where there is normal hearing in one ear and impaired hearing in the other ear.
The Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) in Sydney provides a range of educational services for students with vision and/or hearing impairment, including specialist schools for signing Deaf students, oral deaf students, and students with sensory and intellectual disabilities.
Turkish Sign Language is the language used by the deaf community in Turkey. As with other sign languages, TİD has a unique grammar that is different from the oral languages used in the region.
Shathashrunga is a mountain range in the Kolar district, Karnataka state India that meets the Eastern Ghats. The Antara Gange comes within this range of mountains.
Total Communication (TC) is an approach to communicating that aims to make use of a number of modes of communication such as signed, oral, auditory, written and visual aids, depending on the particular needs and abilities of the person.
In the U.S. the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a special education law that mandates regulation for students with disabilities to protect their rights as students and the rights of their parents. The IDEA requires that all students receive a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE), and that these students should be educated in the least restrictive environment (LRE). To determine what an appropriate setting is for a student, an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) team will review the student’s strengths, weaknesses, and needs, and consider the educational benefits from placement in any particular educational setting. By law the team is required to include the student's parent or guardian, a general education teacher, a special education teacher, a representative of the local education agency, someone to interpret evaluation results and if appropriate the student. It is the IEP team's responsibility to determine what environment is the LRE for any given student with disabilities, which varies between every student.The goal of an IEP is to create the LRE for that student to learn in. For some students, mainstream inclusion in a standard classroom may be an appropriate setting whereas other students may need to be in a special education classroom full time, but many students fall somewhere within this spectrum. Students may also require supplementary aids and services to achieve educational goals while being placed in a classroom with students without disabilities, these resources are provided as needed. The LRE for a student is less of a physical location, and more of a concept to ensure that the student is receiving the services that they need to be successful.
Bimodal bilingualism is an individual or community's bilingual competency in at least one oral language and at least one sign language. A substantial number of bimodal bilinguals are Children of Deaf Adults or other hearing people who learn sign language for various reasons. Deaf people as a group have their own sign language and culture, but invariably live within a larger hearing culture with its own oral language. Thus, "most deaf people are bilingual to some extent in [an oral] language in some form". In discussions of multilingualism in the United States, bimodal bilingualism and bimodal bilinguals have often not been mentioned or even considered, in part because American Sign Language, the predominant sign language used in the U.S., only began to be acknowledged as a natural language in the 1960s. However, bimodal bilinguals share many of the same traits as traditional bilinguals, as well as differing in some interesting ways, due to the unique characteristics of the Deaf community. Bimodal bilinguals also experience similar neurological benefits as do unimodal bilinguals, with significantly increased grey matter in various brain areas and evidence of increased plasticity as well as neuroprotective advantages that can help slow or even prevent the onset of age-related cognitive diseases, such as Alzheimer's and dementia.
Singapore Sign Language, or SgSL, is the native sign language used by the deaf and hard of hearing in Singapore, developed over six decades since the setting up of the first school for the Deaf in 1954. Since Singapore's independence in 1965, the Singapore deaf community has had to adapt to many linguistic changes. Today, the local deaf community recognises Singapore Sign Language (SgSL) as a reflection of Singapore's diverse linguistic culture. SgSL is influenced by Shanghainese Sign Language (SSL), American Sign Language (ASL), Signing Exact English (SEE-II) and locally developed signs. The total number of deaf clients registered with The Singapore Association For The Deaf (SADeaf), an organisation that advocates equal opportunity for the deaf, is 5756, as of 2014. Among which, only about one-third stated their knowledge of Sign Language.
Greek Sign Language is a sign language used by the Greek deaf community.
The International Deaf Education Association (IDEA) is an organization focused on educating the deaf in Bohol, Philippines initiated by the United States Peace Corps, under the leadership of Dennis Drake. The organization is a non-profit establishment that provides education to the impoverished and neglected deaf and blind children in the Philippines. The institution is able to hold special education classes on the islands of Bohol and Leyte through sponsorship program financially supported by American and European participants. Established in 1985, IDEA has the mission to give assistance to the deaf community in the Philippines in order for them to achieve self-reliance through the provision of “academic, vocational, physical, spiritual, and economic opportunities”. As a holistic ministry, IDEA aims to develop a society wherein deaf people can benefit from “social and economic equality, exchanging isolation for community, and servitude for self-reliance”.
Prelingual deafness refers to deafness that occurs before learning speech or language. Speech and language typically begin to develop very early with infants saying their first words by age one. Therefore, prelingual deafness is considered to occur before the age of one, where a baby is either born deaf or loses hearing before the age of one. This hearing loss may occur for a variety of reasons and impacts cognitive, social, and language development.
The Malagasy Sign Language is a sign language used for communication among hearing impaired people in Madagascar. An estimated 110,000 to 170,000 people are deaf. It also shows similarities with the Norwegian Sign Language. Seven deaf schools in Madagascar are being sponsored by Evangelical Lutherans.
Latvian Sign Language is a sign language commonly used by deaf people in Latvia. Linguists use LSL as an acronym for Latvian Sign Language.
Ukrainian Sign Language (USL) is the sign language of the deaf community of Ukraine. Ukrainian Sign Language belongs to the family of French sign languages. Worldwide awareness of Ukrainian Sign Language rose sharply in 2014 after the release of a Ukrainian film The Tribe, where actors communicated in Ukrainian Sign Language with no spoken dialogue.
