Both deaf and hard-of-hearing persons are said to be hearing impaired. This term, used mainly in education, indicates a person who needs special support services because of a hearing loss.
Deafness has been defined as a sensory deficit that prevents a person from receiving the stimulus of sound in all or most of its forms. A deaf person has a profound impairment and is dependent on vision for language and communication.
A person who is hard-of-hearing has a significant hearing loss that makes some special adaptations necessary. It is possible for a hard-of-hearing person to respond to speech and other auditory stimuli.
The main form of communication within the deaf community is sign language. In view of this, many deaf persons have not mastered the grammatical subtleties of their "second language" - English. This does not mean that professors should overlook errors in written (or spoken) work. This difficulty with English is not related to intelligence, but is similar to that experienced by students whose native language is other than English.
In the classroom, most deaf students will use a Sign Language Interpreter. Occasionally, a deaf student will request the services of a Real-time Captioner. This is a person who has been trained in court reporting skills and has transferred those skills to the classroom. Some students require only a notetaker. Whatever the service, they are there to facilitate communication between the student and the professor.
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