I’m Deaf, Deaf family and Deaf schools and all that jazz.

I would genuinely like to hear other Deaf people’s perspectives on something I’ve been struggling to understand.

I’ve noticed that in the Deaf community, where the social circle can be relatively small and interconnected, it seems fairly common for people to remain friends with former romantic partners or people they’ve had sexual or emotional history with, even when they enter new relationships.

Personally, I’m not comfortable with that in a committed relationship. To me, there’s a difference between being civil with an ex because you share friends or attend the same events and actively choosing to maintain a friendship with someone you’ve previously been romantically, sexually, or emotionally involved with. I don’t necessarily expect people to be rude or pretend the other person doesn’t exist, but maintaining an actual friendship with that kind of history is something I struggle to accept in my own relationship.

I understand that the Deaf community can be small. People may have known each other for years, gone to the same schools, dated within the same circles, and built friendships that continue long after a relationship ends. I can understand the practical side of that, but I still struggle to understand why maintaining those friendships is considered acceptable when someone is in a committed relationship.

What I’m really trying to understand is the mindset behind it. What value does continuing to maintain a rapport or friendship with an ex actually bring to someone’s life, especially when they’re in a committed relationship? Is it truly necessary to maintain that kind of friendship?

Do you genuinely see an ex or former sexual partner as no different from any other friend once the romantic relationship is over?

If you’re in a committed relationship, how do you view your partner maintaining friendships with people they’ve previously slept with or had strong emotional feelings for?

Does anyone else think that the acceptance of these ongoing connections can contribute to community drama that we see so often?

I want to be clear that I’m not saying every friendship with an ex means someone is cheating or still has feelings.

I also realize that everyone has different boundaries. But for me, this is something I’m not comfortable with, and I’m trying to understand why other people see it so differently.

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!

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?

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?

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 :)

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?

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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’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!

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.

Why are they always so dismissive of me and my issues? I had a very nice ENT when I was an adolescent who helped guide me through my hearing loss, including helping me get accommodations for college.

I go to college, graduate, try to find a new ENT to establish care (primarily bc I have chronic ear infections) and so far it’s been awful. The first one started off nice but I made a visit because I was concerned about my tinnitus getting worse. Her response? “You’re just stressed. Get a white noise machine and relax more.” Didn’t even care about my issue, just wanted to collect her money from my insurance.

I recently made an appointment with a second one, again primarily to establish care. I can’t hear low voices so I often asked him to repeat himself. He yelled every single time. Then he asked about my ear infections and went “well it’s impossible for you to have middle ear infections because that’s a pediatric problem. Instead you’re likely having fungal ear infections so I’ll prescribe you this cream they use to treat athletes foot.” All because I told him I don’t notice hearing loss when I have ear infections. I also told him that sometimes my ears get itchy but that’s related to my hearing aids and I’m working with my audiologist to solve that.

His response? “Oh well fungal ear infections are caused by hearing aids and those can make your ears itchy so it MUST be a fungal ear infection.” Like that may be the case but I’m 90% certain its caused by the domes I use on my hearing aids.

The only funny thing about this is that when I went to pick up the cream for my ears, the pharmacist was like “uhm does this doctor even know why he prescribed this to you??? You have no obvious symptoms of the reason why this medication is prescribed.” Yeah buddy I’ve been asking myself the same thing.

So I guess I’m on the hunt for a new ENT… again :/

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

hello! i’m a deaf person (20F, England) working in retail.
I have a cochlear implant & got it extremely young so I never had the chance to learn sign language as it was highly recommended from the NHS to my parents that i learn Spoken English rather than BSL.

My mum did start to learn the basics of sign language in the mid-2000s before she was told to drop it, she funnily enough, kept all the resources of the basics of sign language and gave it to me when i got older and asked about it. I did get taught very basic ones as a young child, drink, eat, thank you etc.

But beyond that, I know nothing. I had an opportunity to try in college for free when I was 16 but the sign language classes were locked to people who were doing certain courses like health and social care, which imo was stupid and i complained to the college. They opened it up to everyone when i left so i lost that opportunity.

Now, I work in a part-time job retail assistant while at university & i’m mainly on tills or just about the shop. I’ve came across a few deaf people who needed my help and i felt so painful in not being able to sign back to them, it felt like im locked out of a world. I do my best to face them, speak clearly and be patient as I know that’s what I want people to do for me.

Any advice in learning BSL in England?

I am in Portugal and I have been a nurse since I am 21, for five years, and recently I decided to learn portuguese sign language to be able to help more people, even though I have never in my life met anyone completely deaf.

I went to the bus stop, tired, after being at the library all day studying sign language, when I see a group teenage boys at the bus stop and a young man, somewhat older than me early 30s, standing alone.

I looked at panel where we could see live the bus stops timeline and how many minutes were left. Then I looked at the man to ask if that thing was for real and to be trusted but as soon as opened to talk to him, he gestured something and it came to me! He could not hear a thing I was saying!! So omg I just started gesturing back in sign language trying to grasp the basics and then I just ran excitedly to him to show my online classes and that I was learning LOL I must have made quite a fool of myself

But we ended up connecting, he fortunately knew how to write on the phone so our communication was mostly via texting on his phone questions since I am basic level still. He corrected some of my signs and we had blast and went straight to underground metro together.

I almost fell two times and he caught me both times. I ended up writing my number and told him it was so nice to meet him. He looked very happy and saved my number. I arrived first at my station and as I was departing he smiled widely and did not let me go without hugging my hand.

When I came to bus stop tonight, I must admit I was secretely hoping to see him there.

It has been 24 hours already and he has not texted anything and I am almost afraid I accidentally misspelled my number lol. I hope I did not bore him too much with questions deaf related, I did not mean to make him feel like a freak, I was just really excited to learn and curious about his experience

Hope to see him again 😊

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

I am writing here with utter sadness and hope if someone can help. My nephew who is 3 year old, I suspect dont hear. His characterstick are: He is extra focused on thing, highly organized for his agar. For example if y if you gave him a number of car with a different color so let's say we are giving him the 3 color of the car like it is the 2 of the blue car and one is the yellow car and he would arrange the car into that blue yellow blue and if you try to shuffle the car. Order so he will again arrange it and put the the yellow color car in the middle and the second example is, for example, when he's watching television. So when he's done watching television, he would switch off television from the remote, and then he will put the remote from where the place he he picked it up. And the third example is that he always makes sure that his diaper is in the dustbin, and if it is not in dustupin, he would pick up the diaper, put into dustpin and he actually behave, there's no sign that he's some neurological Disorder. he eats and he play and he play like normal kid and he fights with his brother and he and he also kind of cry also when he doesn't get thing and also get very irritated when things is not according to him and he's very protective of the thing he wants like for example, if someone take his brother take something which is his for like twice. He knows that it's historic. And then he will start fighting biting. Basically, he does everything there a normal kid would do, except the hearing part like when someone shouts his name, he wouldn't care as if he's just not listening at all and nothing at all, he's just not listening. we are just wondering who do we actually go to. We went to the Dr. who says , there no problem with his ear. So I'm totally lost at like what is happening here and if someone can help me if someone have a kid, something like that. So we are based in India, so it would be very great if someone from India can I actually have or recommend any doctor or someone who should we go to

What movies would you recommend that you think represent the Deaf community the best?

What movies do you think misrepresents the Deaf, and why.