ABSTRACT
A deaf person suffers from not being able to hear, which is both a considerable inconvenience in social and interactive relationships, and an obstacle in participating in any system of which communication is a major part. Thus the learning problems of deaf people amount to far more than simply whether or not their hearing 'works'. The whole structure of language perception and comprehension is involved, as well as the extent of socialisation, degree of success of socialisation, ability to interact with the social world and degree of efficiency of communication. Pre-lingually deaf people lose their hearing before they acquire language, often being hearing-impaired from birth, and this affects profoundly their storage and use of language and language-related skills. This distinction is reflected in differences in the structure of sign languages and normal lexical language. Problems of language differences between the hearing and the hearing-impaired form one of the few consistent and central findings surrounding research with deaf people.
