title: Hearing Loss: Issues in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Communities.
abstract: Hearing loss can lead to impairments in language and speech acquisition, educational attainment, social development, and reading achievement. More than 90% of deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children are born to hearing parents who may lack the knowledge or experience to effectively care for a child with hearing loss. Family involvement is crucial for teaching self-advocacy and global communication skills, optimizing social development, and helping DHH individuals understand and manage external attitudes about deafness and hearing loss. American Sign Language is a naturally developed language with an always-expanding lexicon and grammatical structures different from those of English. Teaching spoken English and American Sign Language equally, often called bilingual bimodal education, can enhance academic and reading achievement as well as language and psychosocial development. Formal schooling options for a DHH child include enrollment in a public or private school system (often called inclusion, integration, or mainstreaming), a school for the deaf, or a bilingual school. Individuals with hearing loss experience stereotypes and biases that create disparities in health insurance coverage, health care access, and outcomes of mental and physical conditions. Family physicians should recognize and minimize biases to improve health care in the DHH community.
authors.affiliation: University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, TX 78229.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Moreland
authors.affiliation: University of Arkansas Department of Audiology & Speech Pathology, 5820 Asher Avenue University Plaza Suite 600, Little Rock, AR 72204, sratcherson@ualr.edu.
authors.forename: Samuel R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Atcherson
authors.affiliation: University of Michigan Department of Family Medicine, 1150 W. Medical Center Dr M7300 Med Sci I SPC 5625, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-5625.
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zazove
authors.affiliation: University of Michigan Department of Family Medicine, 1018 Fuller St, Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1213, mmmckee@med.umich.edu.
authors.forename: Michael M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: McKee