Is This Common?

[DeafInTX]

There's something I've been curious about....

I know that most (I think around 90%) deaf children are born to hearing parents. But is it unusual for deaf parents to have a hearing child? My reason for asking: My cousin was born deaf. He married a woman who became deaf at age 3 due to illness (scarlet fever, I think). They have 3 children, all deaf. One of the children has a deaf child, one has no children, and the other one has 6 children (God help her) who are all deaf except the last one, who hears perfectly.

Actually, I would have thought that with only 1 parent having been born deaf, there would have been more of a mixture of hearing and deaf kids and grandkids. But with all of the family deaf through 2 generations, it seems odd that the lone hearing child turned up in the 3rd generation. And that must be as much of an adjustment for deaf parents as having a deaf child is for hearing parents.

Is this not so unusual?

 

[ITPjohn]

Ninety percent rule

There's something I've been curious about....

I know that most (I think around 90%) deaf children are born to hearing parents. But is it unusual for deaf parents to have a hearing child? ......

Is this not so unusual?

Here's what I learned:

90% of Deaf/Hoh have two parents with normal hearing

90% of Deaf/Hoh people marry someone who is also Deaf/Hoh

90% of these couples will have children with normal hearing

I also believe that the figure is also about 90% for Deaf/Hoh people do not have someone else in their family who is Deaf/Hoh. This could be wrong.

PS: Welcome to AD. I graduated from an interpreting program in San Antonio.

 

[MorriganTait]

Deafness - it is not just one thing with one cause, it is the symptom or result of something else:

An injury, a disease, a malformation or a genetic defect. In this case it looks like this is a genetic disorder, but which genetic disorder? Some genetic disorders are quite rare, and some will affect many people in the same family. That's how genes are. (Look around - how many people in your family have similar physical features? Hair color? Eye Color?)

 

[Teresh]

Deafness is a symptom, not a disease. There are many different causes of deafness... Genetic, viral, ear infections, etc. etc. Only the first kind is typically transmitted from parent to child, so even if two dhh people get married and have kids, chances are their children won't be dhh unless both have genetic hearing loss. If one has genetic hearing loss, some kids might, others won't.

 

[MorriganTait]

....chances are their children won't be dhh unless both have genetic hearing loss. If one has genetic hearing loss, some kids might, others won't.

Calling something "genetic" is very non-specific. There are easily 100 different genetic causes of deafness - some common, some not so common. How likely a specific genetic mutation is to be passed onto a child is highly dependant on the actual mutation itself.