Speaking with your hands

To deaf or profoundly hard of hearing people who hear virtually no sound, speaking in sign language with their hands, arms and facial expressions is highly useful.
 	
	The vast majority of people with hearing loss can achieve near normal hearing with a hearing aid. The use of hearing aids may be supplemented by lip reading to increase the understanding of what is said.

But for those with little or no hearing, sign language is essential in communicating with friends, family and colleagues. When using sign language, the "speaker" as well as the "listener" must understand the signs. This obviously limits the situations in which you can use signing as most hearing people understand no sign language. 

There is no international sign language, just national signing such as American Sign Language, British Sign Language, German Sign Language, Spanish Sign Language and French Sign Language as well as sign languages in Russian, Greek and Chinese.

Sign language is taught in special classes and like any language, you maintain it, keep learning it and develop it by using it.

Implanted hearing aids heighten childrens quality of life

A recent American study shows that implanted hearing aids called Cochlear implants increase the quality of life of deaf children. According to the study, deaf children with implants rate their quality of life as highly as children with normal hearing.
 	
To be hearing impaired does not have to mean a decreased quality of life. Those are the findings of an American study which has just been published.

“For profoundly deaf children who regularly use a cochlear implant, feelings about life overall are no better or worse than their hearing peers. The findings indicate that cochlear implantation has a positive effect on certain psycho-social domains,” informs Dr. Loy, lead author of the research from Dallas Cochlear Implant Program.

A cochlear implant is a surgically implanted electronic device on the inner ear which provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. 

Study results help parents in considering implants

The findings are important, as prior research has indicated that deaf children often feel less socially accepted, experience more difficulty in making friends and demonstrate greater adjustment problems than their hearing peers. The study results can therefore be useful to parents considering cochlear implants for their children.

“Parents want to know: ‘Is my kid going to be made fun of? How is my kid going to feel about himself with this apparatus on the head?” explains Dr. Loy.

The researchers asked 84 children between the ages of 8 and 16 years with cochlear implants how they felt about themselves, their family lives, their friends and school. The responses were compared with those of a control group of 1.501 children with normal hearing. The children’s parents also participated in the survey.

Though the overall quality-of-life scores were very similar to those of the control group, the younger children appeared to be happier than the adolescents but scored their family lives lower than did children with normal hearing.

The study was published in Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery.

Sources: http://www.eurekalert.org and
http://www.themedguru.com