I have a PhD in biology and a degree in education, and I became interested in working with deaf students while subbing at a school that integrated deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing students. Over this time, I've taken a few classes in ASL, have worked closely with deaf staff and students, and have learned a lot about Deaf culture. I've been following this subreddit for several years now, quietly learning. As with many marginalized communities, I am aware of my privilege and that some actions I might take with good intentions might end up causing harm. In this case, like taking a job best met by a Deaf person. Which brings me to my situation.

I saw a job listing for a teacher at a state school for the deaf and blind. This would be my home state, a very rural and poor area, and I feel the need to help make sure that they are getting access to the science education they need, especially for the students who want to pursue science careers. As a person with invisible disabilities, I am passionate about making science more accessible as a whole, and this is work that I believe is important.

But I also know that this may not be the role for me, as a hearing person. I certainly don't want to take an opportunity away from any Deaf (or blind) science teachers who would want the job, but I genuinely don't know how many would want it. We are looking at a very rural area without a lot of people who are either scientists or Deaf.

So I thought I would turn to this community for insights. What are your thoughts? Where should a hearing person draw the line when it comes to this sort of thing?

To preface, I’m new to the deaf community and have a lot to learn, especially as a hearing person who didn’t grow up seeing the culture or the day to day differences.

I (19f) live with my girlfriend (19f) who has been hard of hearing her whole life. Her first language was ASL, so I’m learning it because she’s going to be fully deaf within the next year and a half or so and even though she can lip read me like she’s reading a book, I’d really like fore that to not be what our communication looks like when she can’t hear me at all.

SO HERES THE ISSUE

She got a job where she needs to wake up at 3:30 am to be able to make it there by 5am comfortably, and waking up has been an issue before and now it’s happened a couple times with this job. She’s been trying to go to sleep earlier so she wakes up, and it’s worked most of the time, but sometimes when she’s exhausted she doesn’t wake up. The way she wakes up now is by alarms on her phone and on her Apple Watch so the vibrations wake her up. I usually set timers or alarms too so that I can wake up to make sure she didn’t sleep in by accident. I work evenings though and usually aren’t going to sleep until 11-midnight, which makes it difficult to wake up to timers because of the deep sleep I’m usually in.

So the question is;

What is the solution to this?
We’ve tried a vibrating bracelet but that didn’t work very well. Honestly I’m pretty out of ideas. I really want to help but I feel like there’s nothing I can do :(

Ps the job market sucks and she really loves this job and it’s a step in the right direction for the career she wants to have so getting a different job is out of the question

Thank you for your time 🙏

Hi everyone! As part of my ASL major, one of the intro courses goes over CSD and is split into 3 sections: SLP, Audiology, and Interpreting. The majority of the class has SLP focused students, and in their intro posts, a handful of them said something along the lines of “helping people with hearing loss”.

I understand that they may not be the most familiar or educated on the Deaf community, which is totally okay. They can learn. My issue with the course is how it’s set up. Much of the material in the audiology section is reused from at least 9.5 years ago. I totally get teachers using prior resources, but given the fact that tech has advanced so much, along with understanding of Deaf identities and Signed Languages, that’s seems quite a large discrepancy.

I was diagnosed with a disease that caused my deafness (though I became deaf a bit before it was diagnosed bc it’s a progressive disease) a year or so before one of the video lectures I watched was published, and it didn’t even mention the type of hearing aid that I first was given when the professor was going over different kinds of HA, either.
Of course, the SLP portion focused on fixing and forcing speech, and also seemed to prioritized using technology and personal devices to communicate rather than building language skills in an actual language. I understand it for children that may need help with apraxia and other speech disorders, but deafness is not one of them. Once again, hearing loss is heavily used and I can’t even remember how many times I’ve heard deaf/deafness. Probably can count them on one hand.

I’ll have to contact the professor that teaches the interpreting portion and see what their knowledge and awareness of this is. I’d like to bring it up to my professors and maybe someone higher up that would be able to get the course content up to date.
I know anecdotally and personally about how and why it’s offensive to say one thing, how signing is much better than language deprivation, etc. but does anyone have any articles or research papers they would recommend for me to cite in an email to them? I’ll also do my own research, ofc, but also looking for recs or advice from anyone that might have been in the same or similar situation before.

TLDR: college course using outdated resources/phrases/information to “educate” students and I want to help change it

Tysm! 🤟🏻🧏

I was a toddler when my mom noticed that when she called my name, I would not look at her or come to her. She threw some coins and saw that I wasn't hearing those sounds either. I got used to being yelled at or called loudly by my family. They never made fun of me, but from time to time we have black humor about it. At the time, in my home country, technology was not as advanced as it is now, and my parents had no idea about my deafness. I was born deaf in my right ear, and my left ear is hard of hearing.
I'm 45(f)now in the state of Texas , and in September 2026 I finally got my audiogram. My right ear is completely deaf (no response, deaf since birth). My left ear has a mild loss in the low pitches that slopes down to a severe loss in the high pitches (roughly 30 dB at 250 Hz, dropping to about 80-85 dB around 2000-3000 Hz). My speech reception threshold is 40 dB, and my word recognition is 84% in quiet and 80% in noise. My middle ear tests were normal (Type A tympanograms). The audiologist recommended hearing aids, possibly BiCROS.

I use Ai for help since English is my second language.

I had sudden onset sensineural hearing loss a few years ago. Both ears, one is profound loss with no word recognition. The other is mild to moderate depending on the tones. I had my hearing until my 40s. I got a cochlear on my profound side.

I’ve been slowly trying to learn ASL. I admit it’s not great. But attending these events there are a fair amount of people who don’t really sign either and use cochlears too. But people who have a lot more hearing than I do ignore and have taken me aside and explained I’m not really deaf enough to relate to them.

I get I didn’t grow up with this but I live with it daily now. Are there different organizations for people that went deaf later?

Hello! I have a two year old who is newly Deaf due to ANSD from a rare genetic disorder. He still likes to watch shows like Bluey or Frog and Toad, but I’d love to find something for him to watch that includes signs (ASL) to help him learn. Or really anything where audio isn’t a key part of the show. I’ve seen some posts here, but they all seem to be at least a year old. I just want to see if there’s anything new as well. Thanks in advance!

Just extremely curious about this. Is there more of a lack of accessibility to the education of sign language for parents/friends/confidants of deaf people, especially parents who wish to start teaching their deaf kids sign at the earliest age possible, or is there more of a need for an interactive way of learning sign for the same groups of people (since languages are best learned with interactions and learning sign from ex.: youtube videos is more often than not not efficient enough for true learning and long term understanding)? Or are there other aspects/target groups which would benefit from interactive learning more?

As we're all being swamped with AI content, I've noticed that AI people's mouths move in slightly unnatural ways, and when I see an ad, I find I can't follow the speech by lip reading. For those who use lip reading as part of their communication, can you read AI character's lips?

I'm posting anonymously because I'm genuinely concerned about a young Deaf child's language development, and I'm hoping to hear perspectives from Deaf professionals, educators, language specialists, or anyone who has experience with language deprivation.

I work with a child who is profoundly Deaf in a small community where there are very limited Deaf resources. I have a degree related to sign language and some interpreting experience, but I am by no means an expert in Deaf education or language development.

From what I understand, this child has very limited exposure to ASL outside of the few hours they spend at school. The parents have requested interpreting services, but they do not sign themselves. They have also been offered opportunities to learn ASL, including free classes and resources, but have expressed that they are too busy.

This is honestly one of my biggest frustrations. I understand that families have responsibilities and circumstances I may not fully know about, but how is a Deaf child supposed to develop language when the people closest to them cannot consistently communicate with them?

At school, almost no one knows ASL. I've taken it upon myself to share ASL resources with staff and incorporate some simultaneous signing and speaking in the classroom so that other students can begin learning signs and hopefully interact more directly with their Deaf classmate.

I've also tried reaching out to Deaf mentors, ASL users, and schools for the Deaf to ask about additional resources, services, or recommendations. Unfortunately, resources in the surrounding area are limited, and I haven't received much guidance yet.

Recently, the school brought in a virtual interpreter who has been engaged, and genuinely interested in supporting the student's development beyond interpreting classroom instruction. The interpreter did let us know that most interpreters will say "I'm just an interpreter" and stay out of it- and that could be due to now really knowing how to interact with kids... but if you are working in k - 12 interpreting, I hope you would know how to work with a team of educators.

We have also started incorporating an AAC device (an iPad that can communicate the student's wants and needs through speech output) per the request of the SLP . We felt this was important because when neither of us is present, the student still needs a way to communicate with teachers, peers, and other adults who do not sign.

However, I keep thinking about:

How is this child actually acquiring language?

Their expressive ASL skills appear significantly delayed compared to what would typically be expected for their age, although I suspect their receptive language abilities may be stronger. I notice that they benefit tremendously from repetition, consistent exposure, and opportunities to communicate.

But what happens when they leave school?

They spend only part of the day interacting with people who sign, and then they go home for extended periods where I am unsure how much accessible language exposure they receive. I imagine the family has developed some form of home signs or communication system, and perhaps they use the AAC device, but I genuinely don't know what language access looks like outside of school.

I keep wondering what is happening developmentally. How much language are they acquiring? What might they be missing through incidental learning, everyday conversations, and social interactions that other children have constant access to?

I personally believe ASL could provide a strong linguistic foundation for this child, but I'm struggling with whether meaningful ASL acquisition is possible when there are so few fluent language models in their everyday environment.

I am concerned about possible language deprivation, especially as the child approaches the academic and social demands of elementary school.

I have even encouraged the family to explore schools for the Deaf because I believe the child could benefit from being surrounded by accessible language, Deaf peers, and fluent language models. However, the nearest options are far away, making this a difficult decision for the family.

I feel frustrated and honestly a little helpless because I want this child to have every opportunity to develop language, build relationships, express themselves, and succeed. At the same time, I recognize that I am only one person and that language development cannot depend on one or two individuals being present for a few hours a day.

So I would genuinely love to hear from the Deaf community:

• For Deaf professionals or educators familiar with child development, what happens when a Deaf child has inconsistent access to a fully accessible language?
• Have you worked with children in similar situations? What interventions or approaches were most effective?
• Can AAC support language acquisition alongside ASL, particularly when the child's environment is not signing-accessible?
• What additional services, assessments, resources, or advocacy efforts should the school be considering?
• What can someone in my position realistically do to support the child without overstepping my professional role?

I'm especially interested in hearing from Deaf adults who experienced limited language access growing up, Deaf educators, language specialists, and professionals who work with children experiencing language delays.

I'm not posting to criticize the child or assume I know everything about the family's circumstances. I am posting because I'm worried about the long-term developmental impact of limited language access, and I want to learn what else can be done.

I just don't want this child to fall further behind because the adults around them haven't figured out how to make their world accessible.

Advice / resources needed… my colleagues are currently planning an annual, very well-attended church Christmas choir concert. I am not part of the planning committee, but do share an office so I overhear the meetings. During a creative meeting last week, someone brought up the idea of hiring an ASL interpreter as an artistic visual during the opening piece. The thought was that this person would sign with the song to give people something to look at. It doesn’t sound like they would be used for any other part of the program.

I have a bad feeling about this for a number of reasons:

1. No one on the planning team has experience with Deaf people or Deaf culture

2. No attendees have requested an ASL interpreter as an accessibility aid (nor have we ever provided interpreters to the church congregation without a request)

3. No one on the planning team knows how to hire an interpreter or ASL performer ethically

4. Having a performer there for one piece SOLELY for the visual aspect (not for actual interpreting) feels like using the language of ASL and Deaf culture as a performance gimmick, and therefore cultural appropriation.

I also have very little experience with Deaf culture (just follow Deaf creators on social media and have done research to try and identify some best-practices around things like this), so I need some perspectives.

So, my question: am I on the right track that this is morally wrong? What perspectives can I bring up or resources can I point to help my colleagues understand this as well? I am the youngest and newest member of the office staff, so I sometimes feel like I’m perceived as the “woke gen-z-er” in situations like this…

Any thoughts are appreciated - thank you!

I (early 20s) have reverse cookie bite hearing loss. Whenever I look it up online, I can’t find many articles about it, so I’m wondering how rare this type of hearing loss is.

Additionally, I’m wondering how I developed it as apparently it’s usually caused by an ear deformity or menieres, neither of which I have or have ever had. I don’t think it’s genetic as the only person with hearing loss in my family is my 70+ year old grandfather and he has a normal age related hearing loss.

I’ve attached my audiogram for funsies :)

Google's Sign Language to Text technology is locked behind a paywall and a single phone model. I started a petition asking Google to open source this tool so deaf and hard-of-hearing people everywhere can use it. Please, sign the petition.

Sign the petition if you believe accessibility shouldn't be exclusive.

This looks like it should already be a item for sale. Pc can do this i guess on its own I suppose so if no product what is the best ai / voice to txt nowadays? Sorry I did research a little on my own before posting

If you or someone you know is in or near NYC, this is a wild experience. Tickets are available HERE. And if you can't attend but would still like to support the production, all DONATIONS go directly to paying the cast and show expenses (at least watch the intro video - it's cute). Follow on Instagram for future events!

UPDATE: Shows are almost sold out (there are waitlists if they do), so don't sleep on it.

Has anyone used the caption glasses that caption what people are saying on your glasses as they say it? What do you think of it? I worry it might cause headaches which I already have chronic migraines so wanted to get opinions of those who tried them. Thank you.

I'm hard of hearing. Sometimes when my mother wants to get my attention she will call me from the other room. I sometimes don't hear it well, so she accuses me of ignoring her.

Just now, I went to ask about something and she's giving the cold shoulder. I'm confused by this and ask her what the problem is. She is angry and the only thing she will express is, "how do you like to be ignored?" I reply I don't understand the problem. So she takes the horn she sometimes uses to call me and honks it several times. Then she repeats, "how do you like to be ignored?"

I'm assuming she tried using the horn to call me and I never heard it. I don't have any memory of hearing a horn. I tried asking if this happened today or yesterday and she won't answer, She just says, "Think about what you did."

I'm very frustrated by this and am tired of dealing with that kind of behavior but I don't know what to do about it. Whenever she gets angry and starrts giving the cold shoulder, I try to apologize later to get things back to normal because she never lets things go otherwise. But I'm also getting tired of that, especially in this case when it's apparently related to my hearing disability.

Not sure if this is the best place to post or not but here goes.

I am a speech-language pathologist (SLP) who works in a public school that has a Deaf and hard of program. The teacher of the Deaf (TOD) has made it very obvious that she finds SLPs to be worthless for her students. I do not feel like I can really talk to her or try to collaborate with her. I explained to her that my main priority is LANGUAGE and that I don’t just work on voicing (I’d actually prefer not to) but she believes that she’s the end all for her students.

To add to the frustration, I’m literally a hard of hearing person who is active in the Deaf community and trying to support the language/communication needs of students and she is a hearing woman with no personal connection to the Deaf community aside from her students.

I had wanted to stay at my school long term but I think I might end up leaving.

Also to note: I am the first signing SLP that they have ever worked with and if I leave they will go back to having an SLP who is ignorant on Deaf culture/experience

I’m just frustrated and needed to get this out to the ether.

I have CAPD and usually I have two different devices to game, one for the actual game and the other for voice chat (the game on my earphones and voice chat on loud speaker) because having it both come out of the same source makes it too difficult to understand and we have lost some runs solely because I don't hear neither instructions nor the game itself if I'll have both from speakers or if I'll have both on headphones. Having to use two devices for voice chat while gaming is bothersome. Is there any other solution for this, where I won't have to use two devices at once?

I’m deaf. Hard of hearing since birth, and I have gotten by thus far in life through a mix of the hearing I do have, plus lip reading. I have hearing aids, but hate wearing them. My insurance only pays for the very basic shitty ones, and they don’t help at all. Just give me headaches and increase background noise, making it even more difficult to hear than not wearing them.

I recently started a new job as a special education teacher. This is the first job I’ve had that is high-stakes enough that “getting by” isn’t enough to cut it when it comes to communication and getting information. Because of this, I’ve started learning ASL more seriously. I’m a little under two months into a class at my local community college, supplementing with Lingvano app, and practicing multiple hours a day. I’m improving really fast, but I’m still nowhere near proficient.

My job requires soooo many meetings. I have annual IEP meetings for all of the students on my caseload, plus eligibility and reevaluation meetings for several of them. On top of that, I have faculty meetings, PLC meetings, trainings, workshops, and parent teacher conferences. I’m really struggling. All of the rooms have horrible acoustics, so I am averaging about 5% understanding of what’s being said, but like 25% if I can see people’s lips.

I am wondering if there’s any existing sort of setup where I could buy a little microphone (or several) for speakers to attach to their shirts and send to my phone to transcribe what they’re saying. Sort of like “irl closed captioning.”

I think something like that might be enough to help me understand what people are saying until I become fluent enough that requesting an ASL interpreter for these meetings would be helpful. I know that even with daily practice, it might take at least a couple years to become truly fluent.

Any recommendations would be appreciated!

This occurred to me after seeing this Tiktok from a Deaf actress playing Zoe Murphy in the stage musical Dear Evan Hansen, in which she explains the sign names she created for three of the major characters in the show, those being herself, her brother Connor, and her eventual boyfriend Evan.

She's explained in other Tiktoks how this version of the show with a Deaf Zoe impacts the story, stating that her parents don't know a lot of ASL since they never took the time to learn it, being so preoccupied with her very troubled brother Connor, and how that compounds Zoe's isolation within her own family.

With this context, it seems like she's saying that Zoe gave herself her own sign name because she didn't have many, if any, signing people around who could've given it to her - except I'm aware that giving yourself your own sign name is a major faux pas within the Deaf community, even if you're Deaf yourself. But could you give yourself your own sign name if you truly had no one around to give you one?

Or am I overthinking this and making some odd leaps in logic from a couple of Tiktoks about a fictional character?

I know I am not the only one who is demotivated year by year because I can't understand shits what my professors are saying unless there are built in subtitles above their heads whenever they speak.

I'm a hard of hearing person, I have a profound hearing loss and having to deal with this every class makes me feel less motivated to study. My only options are to watch the lessons in youtube (with captioning features) after class or read a book dedicated to the subject.

Also I'm sitting in the front row where I can only face my professor, it just doesn't help that much.. I tried lip-reading but it feels so difficult to catch it 'cause I would realize by then I'm missing out the material.

I really don't know what to do, and I'm hoping for an advice. I'm a first year student, taking a math major. I also wear my hearing aids daily.

idk.. her sister was in my class last semester (spring) and i’d started using interpreters for all my classes bc i was losing a substantial amount of hearing very quick. i texted her the first day saying her sister was there i said hi and stuff then after my first class w my interpreter, i could see her sister kind of looking back and forth and then that same day my friend unfollowed me and stopped like sharing her location and stuff? we haven’t talk at all since then. we weren’t super close right before this situation but like :/ we were best friends thru hs. she’s very big on like anti-faking disabilities (as am i??) and taking resources u don’t need so idk :/ she always had a big of a strong-headed almost savior complex abt stuff like this so i feel sad she might’ve unfriended me for “faking”

the last time we saw each other irl too i didn’t have my hearing aids or a formal diagnosis for my hearing loss then after that i j started losing hella hearing

i went from the phillips RIC from costco to now phonak L-UPs (my current set up) in like a year and a half. i went thru 4 hearing aids. phillips RIC, jabra BTE, resound BTE, and now the phonaks. my audio says if my hearing loss continues slowly, which it has slowed down but i’n still consistently showing loss EVERY hearing test every like 3 months, i’ll be fully deaf in at most 5-10 years. if it speeds up again it’ll be much sooner. i have loss in every frequency. its gone from cookie bite w some normal hearing in 2-3 testing frequencies to now EVERY one has loss and my hearing loss is almost flat

its been hard and it would rlly suck if i lost a friend bc of this

Hey r/deaf 👋

Mods, same deal as last time: if this crosses the self-promo line, nuke it, no hard feelings. I'm posting here first again because you're the people it's built for, and a lot of what changed over the last few months came straight from your comments and DMs.

The short version:

deafmonitor.com is still one website for Deaf news, Deaf jobs, and Deaf events. It's still free to browse, with no waitlist and no "enter your email to see more." Since launch, I've been fixing what you told me was broken and building what you said was missing.

What's new since launch:

• Better news coverage. The aggregator now catches a lot more real Deaf news, in the US and internationally. It runs health checks throughout the day, and when it misses a story, I add the story and fix whatever caused the miss. It's also much better at skipping stuff that just happens to use the word "deaf" (product ads, "fell on deaf ears," random acronyms).
• The Signal. A daily briefing at deafmonitor.com/briefing that sums up what's happening in the community as a short, readable write-up instead of a wall of headlines.
• The DeafMonitor Weekly. A free email that lands every Monday morning with the week's biggest Deaf stories, events, and videos. It's one email a week, never daily, because nobody needs more inbox noise.
• A rebuilt phone version. Most of you read on your phones, so the site now has a tab bar at the bottom (News, Videos, Events, Sports, Me). It loads a lot faster and the search bar is easier to spot.
• A reader you can adjust. Every story has three real text sizes, a Readable mode, light and dark themes, plus Share, Save, and Copy link right at the top.
• Videos and Deaf sports. There's a video section with Signing Screen and Deaf in the News, plus Deaf sports scores and coverage.
• Follow it wherever you already are. New stories also go out on Facebook, X, Discord, and Telegram.
• Privacy fixes. IP addresses get scrambled, old analytics data gets deleted every night, the site respects "don't track me," and the consent wording is clearer.

Same promises as day one:

1. I'm Deaf. I built this for us, not at us. If something feels off, tell me.
2. I'm still one person. No VC money, no content farm, no hearing company cosplaying as an ally.
3. Things still break sometimes, and I still fix them fast.

What I'm asking:

• Look again, especially if you checked it out on launch day. It's a different site on a phone now.
• If you want the highlights without checking the site, sign up for the DeafMonitor Weekly.
• Tell me what's still wrong or missing. Comments or DMs.
• If you're a Deaf creator, business owner, or event organizer and you're not listed yet, get listed.
• If it's useful to you, tell one other Deaf person. That's still the whole marketing plan.

What I'm not asking for: money, upvotes, or a pile of "congrats!" comments. I just want your honest eyeballs and your honest feedback.

Free is still actually useful. Pro is $9.99/mo ($4.99 for students) if you want more depth.

Link: deafmonitor.com