Year II and Growing: A Report from the STC Special Needs Committee: The Nature of Deafness

摘要

Deaf persons are not a monolithic group. Persons born deaf or who become deaf before learning the language of their environment (prelingual deafness) have a significant educational challenge as well as a communication challenge. Other deaf persons have a communication challenge. Deaf persons may be divided into five categories. For the purposes of this paper the categories are prelingual deafness, prelingual hard-of-hearing, postlingual deafness, postlingual hard-of-hearing, and presbyacusis. (old-age deafness) Each of these categories are discussed in detail including the characteristics of persons within the categories, and the nature of the problems they encounter.