Deafness Facts You Should Know

There are a lot of interesting things that people should know about people who are deaf.

In fact, some of the techniques they used to communicate with one another are used by normal people as well.

Let’s start by saying that there are approximately 22 million people in the US who are deaf or who are suffering from deafness problems. It affects both men and women which include infants, children, adults and the elderly. While some were born with it, others lost their hearing later on in life.

In the field of sports, the huddle formation which is used in football was first invented by a liberal arts college for the deaf. This prevented other teams from listening in to what they are planning both during offense and defense.

As for those hand signals that you see in baseball, yes they too were invented by a deaf center fielder for the Cincinnati Reds, namely William Hoy.

Since it is hard for some people to transcribe what is being said, the shorthand was invented by John Gregg who also happens to be deaf.

The deaf use sign language to communicate with one another. Although they cannot understand what someone is saying, they have the ability to read that person’s lips and communicate back by talking to the person or using sign language if that person can understand it.

In fact, their own language has been linguistically defined as a separate language such as English, French, and German.

Because of its usefulness, this technique was later adapted to scuba diving since it is not possible to talk with people under water and even by the military when they want to surprise the enemy.

A lot of celebrities have deafness problems. Some of these people include former presidents, athletes, actors, actresses, lawyers, doctors, inventors, teachers, writers, cartoonists and a lot more. Just to give you a few examples;

One of the most famous composers of all time was Beethoven who was profoundly deaf when he wrote the 9th symphony.

Alexander Bell who invented the telephone and was not deaf was originally an instructor for deaf children and invented this device to help his deaf wife and mother.

Musicians and rocks artists such as Eric Clapton, Peter Townshend of the Who, Sir George Henry Martin of the Beatles and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys are deaf.

Because deaf people are not able to hear, their others senses are more developed to compensate for this deficiency. This is probably why they have a better safety driving record compared to people who can hear. This may even be attributed to the fact that deaf people live longer hearing people.

No one wants to be born deaf but it happens. Rather than feeling sorry for themselves, they pressed on with their lives and are known worldwide because of their talent or ingenuity. This is why some invented various techniques and inventions which we just take for granted today.

One thing we have to remember out of all of this is that they too are people. They go to work, go to school, vote, own businesses, pay taxes, drive cars and do other things that we normally do. The only difference is that they are deaf and we must respect and understand that.