can a born deaf person hear his own thoughts?

Question

inspired by the question if blind could see their dreams, i wondered how deaf people think. Do they think in images or do they still "hear" their words?

Answer 1

Can you think without language? Answer: Nope, at least not at the level humans are accustomed to. That's why deafness can have far more serious consequences than blindness, developmentally speaking. The blind suffer many hardships, not the least of which is the inability to read in the usual manner. But even those sightless from birth acquire language by ear without difficulty in infancy, and having done so lead relatively ordinary lives. A congenitally deaf child isn't so lucky: unless someone realizes very early that he's not talking because he can't hear, his grasp of communication may never progress beyond the rudiments.

The language of the deaf is a vast topic that has filled lots of books--one of the best is Seeing Voices: A Journey Into the World of the Deaf by Oliver Sacks (1989). All I can do in this venue is sketch out a few basic propositions:

The folks at issue here are both (a) profoundly and (b) prelingually deaf. If you don't become totally deaf until after you've acquired language, your problems are . . . well, not minor, but manageable. You think in whatever spoken language you've learned. Given some commonsense accommodation during schooling, you'll progress normally intellectually. Depending on circumstances you may be able to speak and lip-read.

About one child in a thousand, however, is born with no ability to hear whatsoever. Years ago such people were called deaf-mutes. Often they were considered retarded, and in a sense they were: they'd never learned language, a process that primes the pump for much later development. The critical age range seems to be 21 to 36 months. During this period children pick up the basics of language easily, and in so doing establish essential cognitive infrastructure. Later on it's far more difficult. If the congenitally deaf aren't diagnosed before they start school, they may face severe learning problems for the rest of their lives, even if in other respects their intelligence is normal.

The profoundly, prelingually deaf can and do acquire language; it's just gestural rather than verbal. The sign language most commonly used in the U.S. is American Sign Language, sometimes called Ameslan or just Sign. Those not conversant in Sign may suppose that it's an invented form of communication like Esperanto or Morse code. It's not. It's an independent natural language, evolved by ordinary people and transmitted culturally from one generation to the next. It bears no relationship to English and in some ways is more similar to Chinese--a single highly inflected gesture can convey an entire word or phrase. (Signed English, in which you'll sometimes see words spelled out one letter at a time, is a completely different animal.) Sign can be acquired effortlessly in early childhood--and by anyone, not just the deaf (e.g., hearing children of deaf parents). Those who do so use it as fluently as most Americans speak English. Sign equips native users with the ability to manipulate symbols, grasp abstractions, and actively acquire and process knowledge--in short, to think, in the full human sense of the term. Nonetheless, "oralists" have long insisted that the best way to educate the deaf is to teach them spoken language, sometimes going so far as to suppress signing. Sacks and many deaf folk think this has been a disaster for deaf people.

The answer to your question is now obvious. In what language do the profoundly deaf think? Why, in Sign (or the local equivalent), assuming they were fortunate enough to have learned it in infancy. The hearing can have only a general idea what this is like--the gulf between spoken and visual language is far greater than that between, say, English and Russian. Research suggests that the brain of a native deaf signer is organized differently from that of a hearing person. Still, sometimes we can get a glimpse. Sacks writes of a visit to the island of Martha's Vineyard, where hereditary deafness was endemic for more than 250 years and a community of signers, most of whom hear normally, still flourishes. He met a woman in her 90s who would sometimes slip into a reverie, her hands moving constantly. According to her daughter, she was thinking in Sign. "Even in sleep, I was further informed, the old lady might sketch fragmentary signs on the counterpane," Sacks writes. "She was dreaming in Sign."

--CECIL ADAMS


http://www.straightdope.com/columns/031226.html

Answer 2

Do you hear your words, when you think. Thinking is not a vocal process and most thoughts are a matter of imagining without words. Deaf people do the same thing. If they were not born deaf, they can still recall the sounds of speech, but the born deaf think as we do without the occasional word processing. They learn to speak by the movement of lips and the vibration of the larynx.

Answer 3

The mind has much marvellous power far more than you have ever dream-ed of and humanity has barely begun the wonderful evolutionary journey that will let as tap into them all at will. we grow in our abilities as we do things. there are many wonderful thing you can do them, you learn more about the innate qualities of mind and spirit, and as you exercise these inner abilities, they will grow in strength as will your vision of your mental and spiritual potential. When we close our eyes and withdraw our physical from the world around us, we enter another realm of life entirely. It is more fluid than our physical world, but it is just as real. It is a world where we can dream. You are what you think all day long. Your thought and its manifestation are one in your mind. In your mind the thought shape and substance in another dimension if mind. and yeas deaf person hear there own thoughts.

Answer 4

You pose an interesting question. I can't say i've ever thought about that before. I imagine though, that he "hears" the same way that he thinks of doing something - like if he thinks hes going to turn on a light switch- he mimics whatever that process is and pictures the action or object in his head. probably he thinks in images rather than spoken thought

Answer 5

How old are you? I'm in 7th grade and even I know. If they know what each word means, then yes, they can generate thoughts in their mind that a brain can decipher into words. Yeah! They're not blind! They're deaf! Of course they can see sign language!

Answer 6

Yes I think they can. They have to have thoughts to be able to get through life. They learn how to go things through action, they learn how to sign, they still have thoughts.

Answer 7

nobody hears their thoughts

nobody sees their dreams


it's all in the brain....the use of ears or eyes has nothing to do with them

Answer 8

What a bizarre question!