Originally Posted by rockdrummer

What I mean about limited options relates to face to face communication between individuals.

The options are dictated by the communication abilities of those involved. For face to face communication you can either sign, talk and speechread, read and write or I suppose if you both have sidekicks you could use them.

If I were a deaf person, I would want to have most, if not all of the above to better my chances of communicating in any given situation. The same applies for hearing people involved with the deaf community.

The concequences of not having any of those abilities would be limited or no communication.