Society Journal

Society has not always been accepting of the disabled.  As adults, people try to treat others the way they want to be treated; however they sometimes treat disabled people a little differently than those without disabilities.  People who wear hearing aids are often talked down to as if they were stupid or don’t understand things and people talk louder when a normal voice will do.

The deaf community is their own culture in their own society and feels they do not fit in with the regular culture or society.  And the difference is they like it that way.  Deaf communities all over the country celebrate their deafness as a God-given blessing instead of a curse or seen as something is wrong with them.  Every day they celebrate their uniqueness in a way that the  hearing society will never understand.  Even the hard of hearing community, which can hear some words and sounds by using hearing aids, are left out in the cold when it comes to the deaf community.  Hard of hearing people usually have a voice as well and this differentiates them from the deaf community whose official communication tool is ASL or American Sign Language.

For those who do have a slight hearing capability, they walk a fine line between the hearing world and the deaf community.  They must feel as if they do not belong in either world because it is difficult for them to communicate in the hearing world because they do not hear completely and sometimes their voices sound different if they did not have a voice in place before they lost their hearing and in the deaf community they are shunned because they do have some hearing capabilities.

There are many places that will help hearing impaired people such as hearing aid companies on the internet that have hearing aid comparisons on their website so that the hearing impaired person will be able to choose the right hearing aid for their loss of hearing.

Another spot of contention between the deaf community and the hearing impaired world is a cochlear implant which allows people who have some hearing capabilities to hear better and distinguish different sounds.  This is so that they might be able to hear better and speak in a somewhat normal tone. The reason people who are hearing impaired or deaf do not speak as clearly as people without hearing disabilities is because they cannot hear their own voice or the tones necessary to form the words; therefore their words come out at a different pitch than normal.

Other disabled people such as blind people blend well with both communities, the blind community and the world with vision.  The only difference is the pair of sunglasses, a white stick and sometimes an escort or a Seeing Eye Dog.