Can someone who is severely deaf talk normally?

deafskeptic said:
Depends. I'd say ignorance is a big handicap when it comes to hearing deciding what I can or can not do. It's harder to correct than rudeness.

For example, my dad is certain I can't be a sales person because I'm deaf. I'd agree that I'd not make a great sales person but the reasons has nothing to do with my deafness. I know one ASL deaf who makes a living at selling stuff. I've never heard him speak.
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You're right, selling stuff is very-personality dependent...not hearing-dependent!
Ignorance is hard to correct, but so is rudeness--some people are rude because they're ignorant, others are ignorant because they're rude (no one wants to hang out with windbags!).
 
I was born with severe hearing loss, Ive been wearing hearing aids since I was 3 or 4 I think, my parents didnt know I was hard of hearing until then.

I can speak perfectly, but like other people here, my voice adjusts and lowers when I remove or have on the hearing aids, I do tend to speak louder if I can't hear my own voice, despite knowing this, I still do it.
 
my husband has severe hearing loss and his speach sounds normal.

my daughter has profound loss one ear nd severe to moderate loss in the other. she sounds pretty normal. there are some sounds she can't get. she gets teased for talking like a baby.
 
What is normal? I am hearing and i speak with a thick southern draw. For me the southern accent is normal. The rest of the accents in the country are not. I really look at the Deaf voice as an accent. Most hearing people know a Deaf person because of their accent without ever being told. Words are pronounced similarly by most Deaf people who use their voice. I think the question could have better been asked if Deafies can speak properly. But again that is subject to opinion. The British would say we Americans don't speak proper English. I don't think many will Deaf (from birth) will be able to speak like a hearing because you have no frame of refrence. My Deaf friend was born in the South and lived here all his life but doesn't speak with a southern accent like i do. He has no frame of refrence although he speaks well in my opinion. He has told me though that a lot of people don't understand him.
For the Deafies may i give some insight. A lot of hearing people have trouble with accents. People up north have trouble with mine sometimes. Now i don't speak like some back woods hillbillie but there is no denying i am southern. A lot of hearing people just are not good with accents and cannot understand any but their own. Don't take this personally or think you aren't speaking well enough. You might speak fine some hearing people just can't understand you just like if you spoke with a French, Spanish, German, or in my case Southern accent.
 
Good question. When I went up north to NTID many years ago, everyone kept saying how I sounded like I was from the South. I wondered how much of my speech was Southern accent and how much of it was deaf speech.

It's hard to tell considering the fact that I'm prelingually deaf. I didn't get my first HA till I was 2 1/2 yrs old and didn't begin speaking till I was 3. I was diagnosed as being deaf at age 9 months old.

I do remember saying drawer the "wrong" way when I was little. It turned out that my speech teacher was from Maine hence why I spoke with a New England accent when I was little. I've never been in New England.
 
I don't have a "deaf voice," but my friends and family say that they can tell I can't hear well by the way I speak and pronounce words. (I'm now totally deaf because of CIs but had severe-profound hearing loss for the past 10 years)

When I received my first pair of HAs for a moderately-severe hearing loss, even my audi told me that she could tell that I was hard of hearing by the nasal quality of my voice as well as the way I slurred words. I've also had a lisp for as long as I can remember, but I don't know if that's due to my hearing loss or not.

As my hearing loss continued to progressively get worse over the years, my speech has remained pretty consistent.

By the time my hearing loss reached the severe-profound level, I had more difficulty hearing myself talk even with hearing aids which meant that I oftentimes spoke loudly without meaning to.

When both of my CI processors are removed, there is a definite "deaf quality" to my voice because I can't hear myself talk. Even though I know what speech should sound like, sometimes I can't enunciate as clearly as I'd like.

When my CIs are on, I speak very clearly. In fact, the quality of my speech is better than it has ever been because I can hear myself and all of the nuances of speech including voice inflection, syllable emphasis and volume regulation. Even my lisp is gone. :)
 
Southern said:
...For the Deafies may i give some insight. A lot of hearing people have trouble with accents. People up north have trouble with mine sometimes. Now i don't speak like some back woods hillbillie but there is no denying i am southern. A lot of hearing people just are not good with accents and cannot understand any but their own. Don't take this personally or think you aren't speaking well enough. You might speak fine some hearing people just can't understand you just like if you spoke with a French, Spanish, German, or in my case Southern accent.
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There is a lot of truth to the fact that having hearing doesn't make you a linguist. The ability to understand variations in a spoken language (such as American English and its dialects) is more a function of the person's brain in interpretating what one hears. Sure, it helps a great deal if one could hear well but it is not everything. To give an example, my wife has superb hearing but has trouble with foreign accents and some thick American ones. I can remember when I had another job where the HR person had an very obvious Indian (India) accent. My wife had all kinds of trouble understanding this lady whereas I at the time had a HA could figure out what she was saying. My hearing with the HA was already starting the downward path then but I could still understand the lady. We both laughed at that as it sort of didn't make any sense. I guess I have a better handle on accents than my wife does and I have an even greater advantage now since I have a CI. ;)
 
Oh

I have a long time speech trouble. No matter what your family and friend tell mee, I tried it with everyone else. I could never get speak normal as they can. I can speak clear but I found it difficult to get my voice out sometimes. I went to speech therapist during secondary school every day and it helps some but I could not get as well as talking like normal with anyone. If I try to speak to someone in consversation with a lot of people, I often found myself get left out. So keep trying and eventually, they learn to respect your voice and they give you a chance to try to talk whatever you desire. Keep trying and also keep on ASL, too.
 
Oh...also, for me, the problem with speaking well is that it gives hearing people the false impression that I can hear just as well. That is where problems occurr cuz it seems that they cant comprehend that I am 100% dependent on lipreading in order to communicate with them. Then the communication breaks down and someone usually ends up frustrated.
 
shel90 said:
Oh...also, for me, the problem with speaking well is that it gives hearing people the false impression that I can hear just as well. That is where problems occurr cuz it seems that they cant comprehend that I am 100% dependent on lipreading in order to communicate with them. Then the communication breaks down and someone usually ends up frustrated.
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I've had similar problems and I tend not to speak with total strangers because it's hard to convince them I'm really deaf if I speak. I spent years in speech therapy for this? :p No amount of speech or lipreading will make up for my profound deafness.

Also I can't understand speech with my HA and I hate it when hearing stand next to my HA instead of looking directly at me.
 
deafskeptic said:
I've had similar problems and I tend not to speak with total strangers because it's hard to convince them I'm really deaf if I speak. I spent years in speech therapy for this? :p No amount of speech or lipreading will make up for my profound deafness.

Also I can't understand speech with my HA and I hate it when hearing stand next to my HA instead of looking directly at me.
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Oh gosh...I had a doctor that kept doing that and I kept telling him "no no no...u need to face me when talking to me" and he said "ok" but went right back doing that again!!!
 
shel90, and deafskeptic.....I totally 100% agree! Oral skills/abilty is nice.......but it really does give the false impression that it gives total and complete equality to dhh kids......and yes, I know about the Harrison Bergeron story that satirizes the concept of complete and total equality.
Oral skills generally aren't sufficent for EVERY sitution.
 
shel90 said:
Oh gosh...I had a doctor that kept doing that and I kept telling him "no no no...u need to face me when talking to me" and he said "ok" but went right back doing that again!!!
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hah ha :lol:

same here.. I must to face the person speaking to me in order to understand them but most of the time they behave like the doctor you mentioned and this makes me feel lonely and :ugh3:
 
deafdyke said:
...
Oral skills generally aren't sufficent for EVERY sitution.
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yep, and I hate some hearing people just for the fact that they almost always force me to mainly use oral communication :ugh: it's so tiring for me :(
 
It is a good idea not to fool yourselves. Once you have been deaf for awhile, your speech deteriorates. I went deaf during the month of May and by December, my family could hear the difference. If you wish to concentrate on speech and neglect everything else, well good luck. Do the best you can with what you have and do not worry about what other people think.
 
Lantana said:
It is a good idea not to fool yourselves. Once you have been deaf for awhile, your speech deteriorates. I went deaf during the month of May and by December, my family could hear the difference. If you wish to concentrate on speech and neglect everything else, well good luck. Do the best you can with what you have and do not worry about what other people think.
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What do u mean deaf for a while? U mean for people with progressive hearing loss? Their speech skills deteriorate?

For me, I have been profoundly deaf since birth and my hearing status has no impact on my speech skills.
 
I can understand what Lantana is saying, but if someone is late deafened and continues to use their speech on a daily basis, there should be no reason why their speech should deteriorate. Sure, there might be some noticeable differences in voice volume, inflection and/or the way certain words are pronounced, but this shouldn't negatively affect speech quality to the point where it is not understandable.

I've had severe-profound hearing loss for the past 11 years (I now have bilateral CIs) and although my speech sounded a little different before I received my CIs (because of the "nasal" quality of my voice and the way I slurred my words), my speech has remained pretty consistent throughout the years.
 
Shel90 said:
For me, I have been profoundly deaf since birth and my hearing status has no impact on my speech skills.
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Um....what? No speech therapy? NO years of trying to get that S, CH, Z, etc. to sound right? I am SURE your hearing status has impacted your speech.

Hear Again said:
I can understand what Lantana is saying, but if someone is late deafened and continues to use their speech on a daily basis, there should be no reason why their speech should deteriorate.
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Even when someone has a terrible cold, only for a few days, their speech starts to detioriate. Not being able to hear yourself makes it largely more difficult to regulate your voice, especially without training. When you can't hear, you don't self-correct the same way, you aren't able to correct yourself based on hearing others, many words must be explicitly taught rather than picked up from those around you.

Hear Again said:
Sure, there might be some noticeable differences in voice volume, inflection and/or the way certain words are pronounced, but this shouldn't negatively affect speech quality to the point where it is not understandable.
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Right, but the comment was not about the voice being understandable, but a noticeable deterioration, which there was.

Hear Again said:
I've had severe-profound hearing loss for the past 11 years (I now have bilateral CIs) and although my speech sounded a little different before I received my CIs (because of the "nasal" quality of my voice and the way I slurred my words), my speech has remained pretty consistent throughout the years.
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Once you've had extensive training, and learned how to regulate your voice without hearing it, or have a certain level of hearing, it makes sense that your speech would hit a consistent level.
 
shel90 said:
Oh...also, for me, the problem with speaking well is that it gives hearing people the false impression that I can hear just as well. That is where problems occurr cuz it seems that they cant comprehend that I am 100% dependent on lipreading in order to communicate with them. Then the communication breaks down and someone usually ends up frustrated.
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OMG, you just brought me back to all the times I wanted to strangle people who told me my son could "hear more than I thought he could" because he had worked for 18 years to develop speech skills! Dumb asses!
 
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