Hearing loss is the most common sensory impairment in the United States, affecting about 1 in 1,000 people at birth and 2-3 in 1,000 newborns. Prelingual deafness refers to deafness that occurs before acquiring a first language, including at birth through age 3. There is a distinction between lowercase "deaf" referring to the audiological condition of not hearing, and uppercase "Deaf" referring to a cultural group who share American Sign Language and a collective identity. While sign languages were once viewed as inferior to spoken languages, they are now recognized as full natural languages used by linguistic communities of deaf signers.

1. Merriam Webster defines “deaf” as:

2. “Hearing loss is the most prevalent sensory loss in the
United States.”
-Losing the Language of Silence, New York Magazine, 2008
According to Schein (1992) prelingual deafness occurs
in the general population in about 1 in 1,000 cases.
According to the National Association of the Deaf the
number of cases newborns that are deaf or hard of
hearing is closer to 2 or 3 in 1,000.

3. “Prelingual deafness refers to deafness that occurs
prior to the individual’s acquisition of a first language
and includes deafness at birth through 3 years.”
-Signs of Their Times: Deaf Communities and the Culture of
Language, 2002

4. D/d
“We use the lowercase deaf when referring to the
audiological condition of not hearing, and the
uppercase Deaf when referring to a particular group
of
deaf people who share a language…the members of
this group have inherited their sign language, use it as a
primary means of communication among themselves,
and hold a set of beliefs about themselves and their
connection to the larger society.”
-Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture, 1988

5. At about 5 years old, Theophilus H. d’Estrella’s mother died and he
was orphaned:
“My mother must have known my wants beforehand, without
any forced attempt on my part. But my guardian was a
stranger to me, and could not understand my desires. It was
necessary that she or I would seek something rational or
conventional to make us understand each other. So we made
signs one after another. Imitation constitutes the foundation of
the sign language. We traced as intelligibly as possible the
shapes and pecularities of the objects and the actions of
bodily movements.”
-Thought Before Language: A Deaf-Mute’s Recollections, 1892

6. “If French is the language of lovers and German the
language of commerce, then perhaps sign is the
language of humans connecting. You can’t sign to
someone if you’re standing next to that person. You have
to look full-on at each other--watch each other’s faces and
necks, shoulders and elbows, hips and knees. You have to
stand a bit further back than you do with spoken language
so that you can take in the entirety of the person…”
- Losing the Language of Silence, New York Magazine, 2008

7. “Since the [1980s] sign languages have become accepted as
genuine languages, and the notion of linguistic communities
of (deaf) signers is no longer novel.”
-Signs of Their Times: Deaf Communities and the Culture of Language, 2002.
There is no universal form of sign language; it varies in
response to different spoken languages and alphabets.
Dialects can form within these different sign languages.
Natural Sign Language
Artificial Sign Language
Fingerspelling

8. American Sign Language
Fingerspelling

9. ASL Pro Signs for Colors
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/phrases.cgi

10. Cochlear Implants
Surgically implanted. Bypasses the damaged portion of the ear and
sends signals to stimulate the auditory parts of the brain.
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

11. Sound and Fury (2000)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXNrqKPsac0

12. This American Life:
First Contact
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/sites/all/play_music/play_full.php?play=411
Ira speakes with Scott Krepel-via his interpreter Marc Holmes-about what
happened when Scott got cochlear implants as a kid and could suddenly
hear for the first time.

13. Lesson & Classroom Adaptations
On some of the difficulties that face deaf students that
have been mainstreamed:
“For a deaf person used to signing, the rhythms of
communication are off. In a deaf class, someone points
to where one’s attention should fall…If everyone is
looking in different directions, how can you know what’s
going on?…Even the architecture of a classroom works
to the deaf student’s disadvantage; often, filing
cabinets are too high for clear sight lines, and desks
are arranged so students turn their backs to one
another.”
-Losing the Language of Silence, New York Magazine, 2008

14. References
ASL Pro. http://www.aslpro.com/
Glass, Ira. (2010, ). First Contact. This American Life Podcast. Podcast
retrieved from
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/sites/all/play_music/play_full.php?
play=411
James, W. (1892). Thought before language: A deaf-mute’s recollections. The
Philosophical Review, 1(6), 613-624.
Padden, C. & Humphries, T. (1988). Deaf in America: Voices from a culture.
Harvard University Press, MA.
Senghas, R. J. & Monaghan, L. (2002). Signs of their times: Deaf communities
and the culture of language. Annual Review of Anthropology, 31, 69-97.
The National Association of the Deaf. http://www.nad.org/
Walker, L. A. (2008). Losing the language of silence. New York Magazine.
Retrieved from http://nymag.com/guides/mindbody/2008/42822/