Deafness

"Deaf" redirects here. For other uses, see Deaf (disambiguation).

Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition.[1] In this context it is written with a lower case d. It later came to be used in a cultural context to refer to those who primarily communicate through sign language regardless of hearing ability, often capitalized as Deaf and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign.[2][3] The two definitions overlap but are not identical, as hearing loss includes cases that are not severe enough to impact spoken language comprehension, while cultural Deafness includes hearing people who use sign language, such as children of deaf adults.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Peads2011 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Padden, Carol A.; Humphries, Tom (Tom L.) (2005). Inside Deaf Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-674-01506-7.
  3. ^ Jamie Berke (9 February 2010). "Deaf Culture - Big D Small D". About.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 22 November 2013.