WHEN DEAF PEOPLE BECOME ELDERLY Counteracting a Lifetime of Difficulties

Abstract

1. Deaf people may feel like foreigners, alone and unable to relate with those in their environment. This is due to the lack of integration with and different enculturation than hearing persons. 2. Deaf individuals raised by hearing parents who cannot communicate with them may develop feelings of powerlessness and frustration. These feelings develop into doubt and distrust of all hearing people. 3. Deaf people feel more handicapped by hearing people's negative attitudes than by hearing loss itself. The elderly deaf people who perceive negative and discriminatory attitudes from hearing caregivers might be uncooperative or resentful. 4. The handicap of being deaf has a disabling effect beyond the hearing impairment and compound the effects of aging.