Types of deafness

There are two main types of deafness:

• Conductive deafness - where sounds has difficulty passing through the outer or middle ear
• Sensory neural deafness - where the cause of deafness is in the cochlea or hearing nerve

Conductive deafness leads to sounds being quieter. It can often be treated with surgery, treatment or hearing aids.

Sensory neural deafness leads to sounds being quieter and being distorted. It can not be cured.

How to describe hearing impairments

Some people prefer particular words to describe their own deafness. Here are the common terms:

Deafness
Term to describe people in a general way, which covers all degrees of deafness.

Hard of hearing
People with a mild to severe hearing loss.

Deafened
People who were born hearing and became severely or profoundly deaf.

Profoundly deaf people
People born profoundly deaf or lost all hearing at a very young age. Likely to use British Sign Language (BSL) to communicate.

Deaf blind
Many deaf blind people have some hearing and vision others will be totally deaf blind.

Deaf community
People who use BSL as their first language.

This page was last updated on 3 October 2011