The causes and degrees of hearing loss vary across the deaf and hard of hearing community, as do methods of communication and attitudes toward deafness. The degree of loss can be decreased through the use of a hearing aid or by surgery. People with conductive loss might speak softly, hear better in noisy surroundings than people with normal hearing. Mixed loss results from both a conductive and sensorineural loss, and might be experienced as ringing in the ears.
Sensorineural loss affects the inner ear and the auditory nerve and can range from mild to profound.
People with sensorineural loss might speak loudly, experience greater high-frequency loss, have difficulty distinguishing consonant sounds, and not hear well in noisy environments. Given the close relationship between oral language and hearing, individuals with hearing loss might also have speech impairments. Those born deaf or who become deaf as very young children might have more limited speech development. Deafness affects the way a person takes in and expresses information. The teaching of or working with a hearing impaired individual, for the most part, is the same as teaching or working with an individual with normal hearing.