Who are Deaf, deaf, and Hard-of-Hearing People?
No, that’s not a typo: the word Deaf with a capitalized “D” indicates a person immersed in Deaf culture and American Sign Language (ASL), and identifies with Deaf people. The word deaf with a lowercase “d,” indicates a person with a severe to profound hearing loss who does not considered himself culturally Deaf.
Hard-of-Hearing refers to people who have various degrees of hearing loss but usually not enough to be considered deaf. Many people who are deaf consider spoken language their primary language. They consider themselves "hard of hearing" or not.
The phrase hard-of-hearing refers to people with hearing impairment or disability as the hard-of-hearing. People who consider themselves culturally Deaf, prefer the term hard-of-hearing or deaf, and perceive hearing-impaired as an insult.
How they classify themselves relative to their hearing loss or deafness is a very personal decision and reflects much more than just their ability to hear.
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