Partially hearing or profoundly deaf? Take your pick!
June 15th, 2009
I met someone today who says she is profoundly deaf and I was so tempted to have a discussion with her (but didn’t). You may ask is it that important? What bothers me is that we use terminology without understanding what it really means. Audiological terms are defined as what a person can hear with (not without) a hearing aid, but most people define themselves (in audiological terms) as what they can hear without a hearing aid. This is an incorrect use of these terms. Partially hearing (or partially deaf) indicates that with a hearing aid you have some useful hearing. Profoundly deaf means even with a hearing aid you will get very little benefit from it. Why is it important to be clear? Well, the first thing I would say is that it is not a competition. You don’t have to be “as deaf as you can” so as to prove that you are really deaf. It also puzzles work colleagues when you say you are profoundly deaf (as indeed you are without a hearing aid) then proceed to have a perfectly comfortable conversation or hear the fire alarm. It just doesn’t hang together and then we get into “well, she can hear if she wants to” which doesn’t help anybody. Let’s just be upfront and honest about who we are and accept there’s no need to pretend to be somebody we are not.
