Mark Harris66
Active Member
158 messages
joined Oct 2016
There’s a massive difference between being deaf and hard of hearing. I actually sit right on the line between those two 😉
I hang out constantly with the "hearing impaired" crowd—both the hard of hearing and the profoundly deaf—so I get a real look at all three worlds.
For someone who is profoundly deaf, sound just isn't a thing... there's zero perception of it. To them, sound is just a symbol that separates them from the "normal" world—just a concept—and they can't even begin to wrap their heads around what sound actually is or how it feels.
Basically, you can't generalize. In the deaf community, it's rare to find someone who is 100% deaf and hears absolutely nothing. Some people pick up certain sounds—like a nail gun, engine turbulence, or the hum coming from a subwoofer if you're standing next to it 😳l: etc. Everyone's range is different. Even for me, the same frequency sounds totally different depending on which hearing aid I'm wearing.
A friend of mine was born profoundly deaf and couldn't hear a nail gun even if it was right next to her ear 😁. After getting a cochlear implant, she had this total shock to her system—it was the first time she actually realized sound exists. Before the surgery, though, she had already mastered her native language and, of course, abstract thought. Deaf people grasp abstract concepts; they just process them differently than hearing people do. They use symbols, but not "verbal" ones.
Deaf people tend to be very visual types—their whole mental perception is almost entirely visual. Even I—and I can hear pretty much everything with my hearing aid (though nothing without it)—listen to music, but I can't actually understand speech. I can hear the pitch, the tone, and everything else perfectly, but for understanding words, I have to rely on lip-reading and logical deduction based on what I see. My thinking process is nearly 100% visual. So, how did I learn to think abstractly? It took a ton of work—the big factors were just thinking deeply and reading a lot. Plus, you need solid logic. You can't do anything without logic 🙏 and a bit of intuition (yeah, intuition plays a part too)
People who are hard of hearing *do* hear sounds, whether they have aids or not. And again, their perception depends on the level of hearing loss, the quality of their tech, and so on. They don't strictly think in visuals like some others do.
Sign language involves using both hands. What kids often use in school is actually just a manual alphabet, whereas true sign language uses one hand for things like spelling out names.
Sign language is fundamentally different from spoken language. Unfortunately, learning only sign language doesn't provide a great foundation for understanding spoken English, because sign language has a more limited vocabulary and lacks many abstract terms (for example, how would you sign "misanthrope"? You'd probably just sign "a person who hates people")
.. I won't go on about sign language, though—not the topic here.
By the way, is it actually true that white cats are deaf? That's news to me 🤷.. It's hard to believe. Is that just specific breeds (I'm no cat expert 🤣), or what?
Also, someone mentioned a hard-of-hearing teacher back in high school. I'm really curious how much hearing loss that person actually had and if they were working in the US. I struggle to imagine how that works in a classroom—teaching, or when students are doing oral exams and the teacher can't catch what they're saying... or when kids ask questions during a lecture. I know of a teacher at a high school in Chicago (if she's still there, I think she moved to the US) who taught art, but she wasn't really hard of hearing—more on the hearing side than the deaf side.
I know, I know—way too many questions at once—but I just stumbled upon this thread...
ps. Silence actually has its own sound. For me, the "silence" feels totally different depending on whether I've got my hearing aid in or not. When I’m wearing it, silence has a certain texture, even if there isn't an actual noise—yeah, I know, oxymoron alert 🤣—but without the hearing aid, silence is just... nothing. A total void.
bijela_maca, you're lucky you live in Canada! 😉
filthy, what part of the States are you in? It’s a shame you haven't met anyone else like yourself yet—it would definitely make things easier on your headspace. But you'll get through all these hurdles eventually... things really do start looking up as you get older.
