Many people around the world live with hearing absence or loss, and clearly they have a very different relationship with language than those who can hear.
A question that hearing people often ask about those who are born without hearing is ‘What language do they think in?’
We all think using a combination of images, words and feelings, but those of us who’ve grown up hearing use language as an integral part of our thought process. People born without hearing, who have never heard spoken speech, generally think in a predominately visual way, with images and, often, word signs or moving lips.
The thought processes of people with acquired deafness are different again. Depending on what age they were when they stopped hearing, they may still think using spoken language, but will tend to use a larger number of visuals the longer they have spent in silence.
