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- Aug 7, 2008
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For us who are severely-deaf, to speak takes just as much effort as one who is profoundly-deaf etc. Our loss is well below the 'speech banana' we cannot hear speech, so when it comes to learning to speak and speaking there can be no comparison between severe or profound or whatever. I can only speak for myself on this following aspect but I am sure that many share my experience. The sounds I do hear are only loud and irritating. English is as a foreign language to me (and I am Australian) just like any other foreign languages would be to me except sign/visual language. The frustration that I have the most is that I can hear some things so it is automatically assumed I can hear people speaking. I rely, as many of us do, on visual imput (lipreading, gestures, facial expressions to name a few). Get me in bad lighting and the wrong conditions and I am as deaf as we come.
I also have to disagree with this. If you were talking about LISTENING to speech as a whole, I may be inclined to agree with you. Being able to pick up SOME sounds still doesn't make you understand speech well. However, picking up SOME sounds allow you to speak those same sounds easier. It's possible to "memorize" how sounds are through speech therapy but it is all from memory, hence more effort.
Basically, if what you said is true, then a person who originally had perfect hearing but is losing their hearing towards a profound state would STILL have perfect speech. Is this the case?