Tuesday 22 March 2011

How Deaf People Think

Today I found out how deaf people think in terms of their “inner voice”.  It turns out, this varies somewhat from deaf person to deaf person, depending on their level of deafness and vocal training.
Those who were born completely deaf and only learned sign language will, not surprisingly, think in sign language.  What is surprising is those who were born completely deaf but learn to speak through vocal training will occasionally think not only in the particular sign language that they know, but also will sometimes think in the vocal language they learned, with their brains coming up with how the vocal language sounds.  Primarily though, most completely deaf people think in sign language.  Similar to how an “inner voice” of a hearing person is experienced in one’s own voice, a completely deaf person sees or, more aptly, feels themselves signing in their head as they “talk” in their heads.
For those deaf people who are not completely deaf or wear devices to allow them to hear somewhat, often represented in deaf circles with a “little d”, rather than “big D” as in those who are can’t hear at all, will often experience more vocal language in their “inner voice” in proportion to how much they can hear.
Interestingly, deafness is significantly more serious than blindness in terms of the effect it can have on the brain.  This isn’t because deaf people’s brains are different than hearing people, in terms of mental capacity or the like;  rather, it is because of how integral language is to how our brain functions.   To be clear, “language” here not only refers to spoken languages, but also to sign language.  It is simply important that the brain have some form of language it can fully comprehend and can turn into an inner voice to drive thought...
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