The majority of deaf people are born into hearing families. Often, deafness among these children goes undetected for a long time and as a result, these children must learn, rather than acquire, a first language. The major communication difficulty for most deaf people is not having a language frame of reference when they are learning to speak, write, or speechread. Normal hearing allows the enjoyment of engaging in natural spoken conversation, listening to radio announcements, understanding news or entertainment programs on television, catching conversational tidbits through eavesdropping, and sharing the latest joke. These types of input which hearing people may take for granted must be accessed by deaf or hard of hearing individuals through sign communication, interpreters and closed captioning for them to be equally sophisticated about their environment.
People deal with their deafness and their worlds in their own way.
Each deserves the dignity of being openly and willingly approached as an individual with unique qualities and skills. There are many specialized terms related to the field of deafness. It associates lack of hearing and speech with stupidity, a theory that has been disproved by many brilliant, non-speaking deaf people. This phrase is no longer acceptable in describing deaf people. Such a person has no language frame of reference for English when learning to speak, write, or speechread.