Do you know, Felix, I was just looking again at those pictures of her which were described earlier & I had always thought they reminded me of someone. I remember now it was a profoundly deaf lady whom I met in a hospital. The angle at which she held her head etc. as though perhaps trying either to make some sense of sound or even to stare to lip read...How very interesting. I wonder if there is anyone on this forum with the ability to lip read in another language...or anyone who could throw more light on how her deafness may have affected her.
How very interesting.
this may be extremely late in coming, but i just now saw this part of the thread. and i figured i'd toss-in my 2˘ worth of opinion (as well, as personal experiences...)
there's a genetic defect that runs in my family which robs the individual of his/her hearing... but it's lost in leaps. at any given point, the individual will lose (let's say...) 25% of his/her hearing
all at once. i have no idea if this is better or worse than losing it slowly, over a long stretch of time. in any event, i'm completely deaf in my left ear & have approximately 75%-85% hearing in my right.
i can verify that depending on the type of loss, the rest of one's body may do odd things to compensate. i must admit that while the complete loss of my hearing frightens me to no end, the situations in which i can only hear the fractured, vague, muffled, unintelligeable mumbling are
absolutely maddening! i'll turn my head, twist my neck, bend my back & otherwise contort into the most impossible positions, in what becomes a violently unrealistic attempt to hear clearly. personally speaking, i have realized something rather odd.... sort of.......
much like cats seem drawn to those people with cat allergies, when people approach me they 8 to 9 times out of 10, will start speaking into my
left ear! in most crowded (and loud) situations, in order to hear them, i usually must pivot my entire upper torso and then turn my head as far as i can (i can almost cast a glance downward & see my own butt! lol) most candid shots of me are terrible.... i always look rather odd. it's usually due to the position i'm in.
i don't know how profound her hearing loss was, but i must mention again, how inconcievably FRUSTRATING (and yes, MADDENING) it can be to
BARELY be able to hear the sounds someone's voice is making but not
quite enough to discern the words.
most of the time, though, i do fine with the combination of the hearing i have left & reading lips. i don't know HOW i developed that ability..... and i'm not actually sure i'm really reading them. i think some sort of unconscious comprehension takes place.....because if i
concentrate on reading lips (or even think about it too much) i instantly lose the ability. whatever it may be.
(or maybe i'm just a freak?)
who can say.
so, i guess there's a certain amount of empathy there.