Sensorineural hearing loss o involves damage to the auditory pathways within the central nervous system, beginning with the cochlea and auditory nerve, and including the brain stem and cerebral cortex. Damage to the outer or middle ear which interferes with sound waves reaching the cochlea. There are very few assistive devices for people with cognitive impairments. As a rule, these individuals benefit from use of simple displays, low language loading, use of patterns, simple, obvious sequences and cued sequences. Some kinds of dementia are curable, while others are not.
Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder.
It is common to find that whatever caused a single type of impairment also caused others. Deaf-blindness is one commonly identified combination. People with developmental disabilities may have a combination of mental and physical impairments that result in substantial functional limitations in three or more areas of major life activity. This page was last updated Friday, February 09, 2001.