But... You don't LOOK deaf!

Believe it or not, I commonly get told I do not LOOK deaf... I love this observation, I mean what is a deaf person meant to look like? Five arms and one leg? A giant neon sign that flashes above my head announcing it to the world? Yes... I look relatively normal, and I say relatively because I am unique and what is normal anyway? Still, it can be frustrating to be told this. My hearing aids are quite small and fairly unnoticeable so often people don't realise it until I point it out and blurt out something nonsensical such as this. So my focus on this blog entry is to clear up some of this misconceptions...

You wear hearing aids! Are you deaf?

Asking someone who wears hearing aids if they're deaf is like asking a person who wears glasses if they are blind. Yes, to some extent I am deaf, but there is such a wide spectrum that it's hard to classify. To put it simply and in layman's terms, there are three main categories: Hearing, Hard of Hearing and Deaf. 

Hearing

Most adults have some degree of hearing loss, but unless it impacts their daily lives they are classified as hearing. Most children can have 0-15 decibel loss while adults is 0-25. Most adults won't even be aware that they have any loss unless they have seen an audiologist! If you are hearing you are able to hear soft sounds at most frequencies. 

Hard of Hearing

In order to be hard of hearing, you need to have mild-severe hearing loss. This is a 20-90 decibel loss. You can either have it in both ears, or just one ear. The main factor around people that are hard of hearing is that they struggle to operate in environments that are noisy, or where there is background noise. Hard of hearing individuals are usually able to wear a hearing aid to help them, there are many different types of aids that help and that suit different people. Hearing loss can occur from birth, ear infections, loud environments, head injuries or quite simply, old age. I have a moderate to severe bilateral loss, which means I have a loss of hearing in both ears, at different ranges and frequencies. Doctors have said that it was probably due to the MANY ear infections I had as a baby and child. 

Deaf/deaf

This is quite a difficult one to explain. Technically individuals with profound hearing loss (90dbl and more) are classified as deaf as they can only hear extremely loud noises, or none at all. Some can wear hearing aids to help with sound, others can't. Technically if you choose not to wear a hearing aid and you can't hear without it, you are deaf. I'm obviously keeping this as simple as possible so I'm simplifying a lot! Being Deaf is another story. If you capitalise the letter that means you are part of the Deaf community and culture. This is largely a culture that speaks sign language (SASL for South Africa!) so you can be part of the Deaf community if you are an interpreter or CODA (Child of a Deaf adult). The Deaf community is fiercely proud of their culture and fight for the right for Deaf children to learn sign language. Currently there is a huge push to make SASL our 12th official language, so watch this space!

Now I've probably bored you with my long speech, but it is important to know and understand the difference. Being Hard of Hearing means that I'm kind of half in the Deaf community and half in the hearing. Although I can function relatively normally with my aids, I'm still not hearing and therefore often feel stuck in the middle. My next blog post is going to talk about my experience in my Hard of Hearing world...