Introduction: Clinical and Community Practice with Deaf and Hard of Hearing People.

Abstract

The purpose of this special issue is to offer readers increased insight on a variety of topics salient to working with Deaf and hard of hearing people. Before detailing more about the articles, it is important to note the unique standpoint of the Deaf and hard of hearing community. Holcomb (2013) used the analogy of the glass being simultaneously half-full and half-empty in analyzing perspectives on the Deaf community. On the glass half-empty side, being deaf can be considered a legal disability viewed through a deficit lens, which can lead society to create a negative stigma associated with Deaf and hard of hearing people as universally needing to be helped or cured. On the glass half-full side, or to be more accurate, the “glass brimming over with positivity and opportunity” (Holcomb, 2013, p. 2), being Deaf or hard of hearing can be a celebrated unique aspect of a person just as people from unique racial and ethnic groups celebrate their own distinct cultures based on their own community and cultural norms, and not based on a comparison to the majority culture. This duality of perspectives is important to acknowledge when working with Deaf and hard of hearing individuals to understand both the client’s and one’s own identity and perspective and how these standpoints will affect the working relationship, process, and outcomes (Leigh, 2009). The Deaf and hard of hearing community is composed of people across a myriad of multiple identities living in urban, suburban, and rural settings, both nationally and internationally. Determining demographic information on Deaf and hard of hearing people in the United States is not a straightforward process. As detailed here, accurate and consistent data collection on Deaf and hard of hearing people is difficult due to various audiometric, cultural, and practical definitions compounded by inadequate data collection on Deaf and hard of hearing people in many agencies. However, there are some facts known. There are an estimated 4,385 babies born with a hearing loss in the United States every year (National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, 2016). Additional hearing losses, for example, through disease, war injuries, and aging, are experienced by hearing adults none defined