Before I became aware of Deaf culture, I used the term “hearing impaired” to mean someone who had acquired a degree of hearing loss. I associated hearing impairment with older people. If a person was profoundly deaf from birth or an early age, I would have used the term “deaf.” I used the terms because these are the most commonly used words in the general population and also because I had no contact with the Deaf community. Now, I would be more inclined to use the term “hard of hearing” to describe people who had difficulty hearing and who use oral language as their primary means of communication, and “Deaf” to describe people who used sign language as their primary means of communication.
The word “impaired” has a negative connotation and implies a deficit and therefore it would be better not to use the term at all. From a hearing point of view, if we cannot communicate effectively with a person then we attribute the “impairment” to them. If the Deaf community do not regard themselves as impaired in any way, then the term is based on a preconception on the part of the hearing community
The Deaf culture has a rich language and cultural heritage so it is no wonder that they are proud to identify themselves as Deaf. I appreciate why Deaf people reject the “impairment” label. The expressions “hard of hearing” and “hearing impaired” are clinical terms and would not be used to describe a coherent community with a language that has all the characteristics of a spoken language, such as grammatical structure (Cripps & Small, n.d.). As sign language is accepted as a fully developed language on the same level as English or Mandarin, perhaps the better term to describe anyone who is proficient solely in one language as monolingual. An English speaker may not be able to communicate with a Mandarin speaker, but they do not label each other as handicapped. Therefore, if a hearing person labels a Deaf person as hearing impaired due to the inability to communicate, then the Deaf person has every right to regard the hearing person as Deaf impaired on the same basis.
References
Cripps, J. and Small, A. (n.d.) Hearing impaired? Hearing Handicapped? Hard of Hearing? Deaf? What’s in a Label? Everything! Retrieved March 31, 2016 from http://www.deafculturecentre.ca/Public/Default.aspx?I=295&n=Hearing+Impaired%3F
