Characteristics of Children with Hearing Impairment.
- Children with hearing impairment are commonly referred to as deaf children.
- They communicate differently either through speaking (which may sound unclear and or different) or by use of Sign Language; hence they should not be referred to as dumb.
- Hearing impaired are not the same as hearing children who cannot hear.
- Over 90% hearing impaired children are born to hearing parents. Hence their language acquisition process gets delayed.
- They form a heterogeneous group due to their parental/family status of hearing, age of detection and identification, type and degree of hearing loss, type of hearing device they use and the early intervention program that they have attended.
- Some children use manual language i.e. signs language while some may lip read and use spoken language to communicate. There could be some who use a combination called Total communication.