Please explain to me, pretty please!

Moon-child

Moon-child

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Can someone please explain to me what profoundly deaf means...how many different categories are there for levels of deafness and what are they? How come some folks who can hear some call themselves deaf and some folks who hear nothing call themselves hard of hearing. I have not been exposed to the deaf culture so excuse my ignornance please!
 
This page has some good explanations: Clicky!

"Profound" hearing loss has a specific definition as used by audiologists. Here's the degrees of hearing loss as explained by the page linked to above:

Degree Of Hearing Loss: Hearing loss is categorized into the following levels:
• Normal Hearing: 0 to 25 dB for adults and 0 to 20 dB for children
• Mild: 30 to 40 dB for adults and 25 to 40 dB for children
• Moderate: 45 to 55 dB
• Moderately-Severe: 60 to 70 dB
• Severe: 75 to 90 dB
• Profound: 95 dB

HTH. :)
 
Kaitlin, thankyou so much for your help, I really do appreciate it. That cleared up alot of questions for me, hey - I learned a few new things today!! cheers!
 
Moon-child said:
Can someone please explain to me what profoundly deaf means...how many different categories are there for levels of deafness and what are they? How come some folks who can hear some call themselves deaf and some folks who hear nothing call themselves hard of hearing. I have not been exposed to the deaf culture so excuse my ignornance please!
Click to expand...


No, it's the other way around, people who CAN hear some or more are called hard of hearing, those who CAN hear less or none call themselves deaf...


RNID.org.uk: Information and resources: About deafness and hearing loss: The meaning of deafness
 
Angel said:
No, it's the other way around, people who CAN hear some or more are called hard of hearing, those who CAN hear less or none call themselves deaf...
Click to expand...

Well, it's kind of confusing.

In the deaf world, if you say "He's really hard-of-hearing," it tends to mean the person can hear pretty well and functions as a hearing person. There's a cultural aspect to the term as well as physiological.

In the hearing world, if you say "He's really hard-of-hearing," it means he can hardly hear a thing. There isn't any cultural association because generally hearing people don't know about Deaf culture.

Yes these are big generalizations but it's been my consistent experience.
 
There are different degrees of hearing loss in the audiology test. I figured that out that being hard of hearing means that you can hear what the other person say on the phone with the special volume on the phone receiver and able to understand without much less lipreading, I think. For the D/deaf, you don't understand what the other person say on the line on the phone at all and have to rely on TTY/TDD to communicate with relay operator or directly to deaf/hearing people who have TTY/TDD. Whether being hard of hearing or deaf, it is best to go on TTY/TDD to communicate better to be safe so that you would not get confuse what the person is trying to say to you on the phone. :dunno:
 
Plussssssssssssss there are those who are hard of hearing who because of their type of hearing loss can not understand speech that well and hearing aides don't work for them because the louder the amplification,,,the worse the speech sounds to us. So,,they learn to lip read and sign to get by or ask people to repeat themselves ....
 
Basically, it means a person can't hear anything regardless of whatever hearing device he/she wears (except for cochlear implants).

Labeling is often something that's done by the persons themselves.

I'm hard-of-hearing. I can hear well with a hearing aid. If I was talking to another deaf person, I would label myself as hard-of-hearing so they know that I can hear with my hearing aid. If I was talking to a hearing person, I would label myself as deaf because most hearing people don't fully understand the concept of deaf labeling.

There will be times when people are stubborn and label themselves in ways that it doesn't make sense. :roll:
 
<<moderate on my right ear

<<milf on my left ear.. OOPS!!! i mean mild.

*lol*
 
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