lysikan:

audiencecat:

lysikan:

deafaq:

Hi,

anyone can learn sign language! 🙂 Lot of autistic people use it, as far as I know, as well as people with other disabilities.

As for your identity, nobody but you can decide how you identify. Hard of hearing is a term that is usually used for people with hearing loss. If your problems with understanding speech come from auditory processing disorder or from something similar, that’s not quite the same thing and not every deaf person would welcome you into community. Its… complicated issue, sadly and I can’t tell you “yes you can” or “no you can’t”. In the end, its up to you.

Also, @andreashettle has lists of blogs who do have APD! 🙂

Hope that helped,

Mod T

EVERYONE should learn and use the sign language of their region! The deaf/HoH community would love it if you could communicate with them in their preferred language!
As a nonverbal autistic, I use ASL to talk to family but I am stuck using text-to-speech/speech-to-text for most other people because no one who is not deaf/HoH thinks they are “allowed” to learn it.

LEARN SIGN. You are allowed. You are requested to.

Don’t claim deaf/HoH if you aren’t – just say you are nonverbal or semiverbal. Not being able to speak or understand speech is not the same as deaf/HoH, we just use the same tools to work with the mouth-noise people.

I’ve been told by a member of the Deaf community that I can call myself HoH if it makes life easier for me – the problem with turning the sound into words is in my brain, not my ears, but the end result is much the same. By requesting HoH accommodation such as subtitles or sign language I’m more likely to make it more common.

Same with me – I hear just fine – words just get turned into noise before I can grasp them most of the time. I avoid the deaf/HoH claim because I have seen people get mad about it and since it isn’t really the same thing it’s easier to avoid offending people and just admit my brain hates mouth noises 🙂