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PubMed2000

Changes in the aetiology of hearing impairment in deaf-blind pupils and deaf infant pupils at an institute for the deaf.

An aetiological study was performed on 57 pupils at the deaf-blind department of the Institute for the Deaf at Sint-Michielsgestel, The Netherlands, in the school year 1998-1999 and on 49 deaf-blind pupils at the same department in the school year 1986-1987. The pupils were 5-20 years of age. In addition, the aetiologies were studied in 55 deaf infant pupils in 1998 and compared with those of 68 deaf infant pupils in 1988. Their age was 1-5 years. All the pupils showed hearing impairment with thresholds of >60 dB HL. Among the deaf-blind pupils and deaf infant pupils, there were several cases with rare hereditary syndromes. The prevalence of acquired causes of deafness, especially congenital rubella, had decreased over the years, whereas perinatal causes of deafness had increased. Chromosomal anomalies were found in 15% of the infant pupils in 1998. Over the study period, the percentage of pupils with multiple handicaps increased from 25 to 38%.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1994

Deaf autonomy and deaf dependence. The early years of the Pennsylvania Society for the Advancement of the Deaf.

Deaf history is more complex and ambiguous than previous studies have indicated, and historians' preoccupation with the manual-oral controversy has precluded a full understanding of deaf people's lives. The historical interests and organized efforts of the Pennsylvania Society for the Advancement of the Deaf (PSAD) transcended language issues and focused on balancing the risks and the benefits of deaf self-determination. One hundred years ago, PSAD's leaders concentrated their efforts on philanthropy and lobbying for the general good of deaf Pennsylvanians, while remaining silent on controversies over deaf education. In effect, they accepted oralism and hearing hegemony in education in exchange for deaf autonomy and improvement in other areas of life. If the PSAD's experience is typical of other state organizations, simple historical models that focus on the actions of hearing oppressors obscure the actual creativity, struggles, and sophistication of America's deaf leaders.

Civil Rights↗

PubMed2000

Empowering the deaf. Let the deaf be deaf.

Deafness is often regarded as just a one and only phenomenon. Accordingly, deaf people are pictured as a unified body of people who share a single problem. From a medical point of view, we find it usual to work with a classification of deafness in which pathologies attributable to an inner ear disorder are segregated from pathologies attributable to an outer/middle ear disorder. Medical intervention is thus concerned more with the origin, degree, type of loss, onset, and structural pathology of deafness than with communicative disability and the implications there may be for the patient (mainly dependency, denial of abnormal hearing behaviour, low self esteem, rejection of the prosthetic help, and the breakdown of social relationships). In this paper, we argue that hearing loss is a very complex phenomenon, which has many and serious consequences for people and involves many factors and issues that should be carefully examined. The immediate consequence of deafness is a breakdown in communication whereby the communicative function needs to be either initiated or restored. In that sense, empowering strategies--aimed at promoting not only a more traditional psychological empowerment but also a community one--should primarily focus on the removal of communication barriers.

Communication Devices for People with Disabilities↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Letting the deaf be deaf. Reconsidering the use of cochlear implants in prelingually deaf children.

In theory, cochlear implants hold out the possibility of enabling profoundly prelingually deaf children to hear. For these children's parents, who are usually hearing, this possibility is a great relief. Yet the decision to have this prosthetic device implanted ought not to be viewed as an easy or obvious one. Implant efficacy is modest and the burdens associated with them can be great. Moreover, the decision to forgo cochlear implantation for one's child, far from condemning her to a world of meaningless silence, opens the child up to membership in the Deaf community, which has a rich history, language, and value system of its own.

Attitude to Health↗

PubMed1998

Attitudes of deaf adults toward genetic testing for hereditary deafness.

Recent advances within molecular genetics to identify the genes for deafness mean that it is now possible for genetic-counseling services to offer genetic testing for deafness to certain families. The purpose of this study is to document the attitudes of deaf adults toward genetic testing for deafness. A structured, self-completion questionnaire was given to delegates at an international conference on the "Deaf Nation," held at the University of Central Lancashire in 1997. The conference was aimed at well-educated people, with an emphasis on Deaf culture issues. Eighty-seven deaf delegates from the United Kingdom returned completed questionnaires. The questionnaire had been designed to quantitatively assess attitudes toward genetics, interest in prenatal diagnosis (PND) for deafness, and preference for having deaf or hearing children. The results from this study provide evidence of a predominantly negative attitude toward genetics and its impact on deaf people, in a population for whom genetic-counseling services are relevant. Fifty-five percent of the sample thought that genetic testing would do more harm than good, 46% thought that its potential use devalued deaf people, and 49% were concerned about new discoveries in genetics. When asked about testing in pregnancy, 16% of participants said that they would consider having PND, and, of these, 29% said that they would prefer to have deaf children. Geneticists need to appreciate that some deaf persons may prefer to have deaf children and may consider the use of genetic technology to achieve this. Any genetic-counseling service set up for families with deafness can only be effective and appropriate if clinicians and counselors take into consideration the beliefs and values of the deaf community at large.

Congresses as Topic↗

PubMed2002

Deaf poor readers' pattern reversal visual evoked potentials suggest magnocellular system deficits: implications for diagnostic neuroimaging of dyslexia in deaf individuals.

Deafness and developmental dyslexia in the same individual may jointly limit the acquisition of reading skills for different underlying reasons. A diagnostic marker for dyslexia in deaf individuals must therefore detect the presence of a neurobiologically based dyslexia but be insensitive to the ordinary developmental influences of deafness on reading skill development. We propose that the functional status of the magnocellular visual system in deaf individuals is potentially such a marker. We present visual evoked potential (VEP) evidence that adult deaf poor readers as a group display magnocellular system deficits not observed in deaf good readers. We recorded pattern-reversal VEPs to high- and low-contrast checkerboard stimuli, which primarily activate the parvocellular and magnocellular pathways, respectively. Principal components analysis of these VEPs produced a time-ordered sequence of three early components that displayed interactions between reading skill and stimulus contrast across multiple scalp recording sites. Deaf poor readers displayed an abnormal absence of contrast-sensitive VEP responses at occipital sites during early visual processing (75 ms poststimulus), whereas deaf good readers showed the expected early contrast-sensitive occipital VEP responses. Over the subsequent 225 ms, the occipital VEP behavior of deaf poor readers closely approximated that of deaf good readers. The VEPs of deaf poor readers were apparently characterized by delayed responses to low-contrast stimuli compared with deaf good readers. Our results provide the first neurobiological evidence that developmental dyslexia exists within the deaf population and is associated with the same underlying magnocellular system deficit that has been observed in hearing dyslexics. Direct neural imaging of the status of the magnocellular visual system in deaf individuals may eventually provide differential diagnosis of developmental dyslexia in the deaf population.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Sexual abuse of deaf children. A retrospective analysis of the prevalence and characteristics of childhood sexual abuse among deaf adults in Norway.

OBJECTIVE: North American studies conclude that deaf children may have a 2-3 times greater risk of sexual abuse than hearing children. No comparative studies are available in the Nordic countries. The present study was initiated to estimate the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse among deaf children in Norway, describe the nature of the abuse, and to examine risk factors. METHOD: A self-administered questionnaire was sent in 1999 to all 1150 adult deaf members of the Norwegian Deaf Register. The Deaf Register includes all deaf Norwegians. The questionnaire, which was also available videotaped in sign language, was an adapted version of a questionnaire used in a Norwegian survey among the general adult population in 1993. The results from this earlier study were used as a comparison group. RESULTS: Deaf females aged 18-65 who lost their hearing before the age of 9 (N = 177) reported sexual abuse with contact before the age of 18 years more than twice as often as hearing females, and deaf males more than three times as often as hearing males. The abuse of the deaf children was also more serious. Very few cases were reported to parents, teachers, or authorities. CONCLUSIONS: Deaf children are at greater risk of sexual abuse than hearing children. The special schools for the deaf represent an extra risk of abuse, regardless of whether the deaf pupils live at home or in boarding schools.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1999

Music and Deaf Culture: Images from the Media and Their Interpretation by Deaf and Hearing Students.

The purpose of the study was threefold: (a) to examine how the visual media have portrayed the subject of music and the deaf, (b) to verify the validity of these portrayals with members of the deaf community, and (c) to compare and contrast deaf and hearing audiences' impressions of these portrayals. An additional purpose of the research was to examine the results in light of possible misconceptions that may be construed by music therapists and music educators based upon the media's representation of the relationship between music and deaf culture. Since music therapists and music educators are the primary persons responsible for the music instruction of students in school programs for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, it is particularly important that they receive accurate messages about the relationship of music to deaf culture. Fifty deaf (n = 25) and hearing (n = 25) undergraduate college students individually viewed motion picture and television excerpts related to music and the deaf. Subjects were instructed to take notes as needed regarding the content of each excerpt and their impressions. Students were then interviewed in their native language, English or American Sign Language, as to their interpretations and perceptions regarding these excerpts and their accuracy. Interviews of the deaf students were translated into English from American Sign Language by trained interpreters. Written transcriptions were then made of the interpreters' English translations of the interviews with deaf students and of the verbal interviews with hearing students. Interview transcripts from both groups were coded and analyzed for recurring themes and patterns using content analysis. Data analysis revealed cultural patterns for the two groups, impressions specific to individual subjects, and trends in communication style and content for the two groups. Implications for music therapists and music educators are given regarding the influence of the media, characteristics of deaf culture, and teaching music to deaf students.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2005

[Psychosocial characteristics of deaf people: evaluation of data from a special outpatient clinic for the deaf].

In this publication, data from a special outpatient clinic for deaf patients in a general hospital are presented. All members of the treatment team have competency in sign language. From the patients who consecutively attended the outpatient clinic, 352 were investigated for medical and psychosocial problems. In social contacts, there is a strong orientation towards other deaf people, and communication is mainly based on sign language. Of the deaf patients, 85% of their partners are also deaf, whereas only 10.1% of children of the deaf group are also deaf. The prevalence of selected psychiatric disorders (ICD 10 F1, F2, F3, F4, F6) in deaf people was found to be similar to that in hearing populations, with the exception of somatoform disorders, which seem to be more frequent in the deaf. Deaf people also more often present with somatic and other complaints such as nervousness, anxiety, and stress. With specific outpatient clinics for the deaf in which members of the therapeutic team are competent in sign language, access to health services is equally possible for deaf people.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1983

Effects of parental deafness and early exposure to manual communication on the cognitive skills, English language skill, and field independence of young deaf adults.

Congenitally deaf college students with deaf parents who were native ASL signers (the ASL group) were compared to congenitally deaf college students who learned to sign between the ages of 6 and 12 years and who had hearing parents (the Delayed sign language group) on tests of cognitive skills, the cognitive style of field independence/dependence, and English language presented and produced through spoken, written, and sign modes. A control group of hearing college students was also included in the study. Differential effects of parental deafness and early exposure to manual communication, generally reported for deaf children, were not observed in the cognitive and communication performance of the experimental subjects. Furthermore, the Delayed sign language group performed significantly better than the ASL group on tests of speech perception and speech intelligibility. No differences on tests on cognitive skills were observed between the deaf and hearing subjects or between males and females. However, deaf females in both groups were more field dependent than deaf males and hearing females, while deaf males did not differ from hearing males. A test of speech reception skill was the only predictor of field independence for the ASL group while a test of cognitive skills was the only predictor of field independence for the other two groups.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1998

[Etiological diagnosis of sensorineural deafness in children: a year-long review of genetic counseling for deaf people].

From February 1996 to January 1997, 74 patients from 53 sibships underwent genetic counselling for sensorineural deafness at the Pasteur Hospital, Paris, France. Genetic counselling was based on the etiological diagnosis of the hearing impairment, by an audiological and non-audiological examination program. At the first examination, 31 families presented with a familial deafness and 22 families with apparently one affected individual. However, familial audiological examinations revealed familial deafness in 5 of these 22 families. Consequently, a total of 36 families had hereditary hearing impairment and the etiological groups showed the following distribution: non-syndromic deafness (14 families), syndromic deafness (12 families), probable syndromic deafness (5 families), and incomplete assessment (5 families). Out of the remaining 17 families in which affected individuals were sporadic cases, the etiological groups were as follows: acquired deafness (2 families), probable syndromic deafness (5 families), unknown cause (5 families), and incomplete assessment (5 families). Etiological assessment is discussed, with reference to the cost-effectiveness of this examination program. In light of this preliminary report, we present a model of assessment for the etiological diagnosis of sensorineural deafness in children and young adults.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1981