Slight pauses indicate the end of a word. Fingerspelling may be used in signed conversations to express a proper name or a particular term. Residual Hearing and Hearing Aids Hearing losses vary. Most deaf people have some residual hearing. The sounds they hear may seem faint, distorted or incomplete.
Some deaf individuals have no residual hearing.
Lipreading Lipreaders or speechreaders must watch not only the lips, but also the cheeks, teeth, tongue, neck and facial expression of the speaker. Some deaf people are born deaf or lose their hearing before they learn a spoken language. Others become deaf later in life because of illness, injury or congenital conditions. Learning English can be a slow process for children deafened before they learned a spoken language and who were raised without a visual language. Some deaf people use their voices and some do not.