- Deaf people are often very frustrated with hearing people. They often say, “If you really love me, you could learn to sign. But I cannot learn to hear!”
- A hearing child enters school with a vocabulary of 5,000 to 8,000 words, as well as an understanding of how to place words in a sentence. An average deaf child enters school with a vocabulary of 30 to 100 words and finds it extremely difficult to learn to read and write.
- In many developing countries, only 1 deaf child in 5 (=20%) is going to school.
- Almost all of the teachers of deaf children are hearing. Most of these hearing teachers do not know enough Sign Language.
- Hearing people often withhold information from deaf people because they do not know Sign Language. It is easier for the hearing person to say, “It’s not important” than to try to Sign. Because of this the deaf get the message, “you are not important!”
- In many cultures around the world, hearing parents consider their deaf child to be a curse. Because of this the parents do not love their deaf child.
- Hearing teachers and parents are not able to teach cultural values and beliefs to deaf children. The deaf child is left to discover his worldview by himself.
- Hearing pastors are not able to teach their beliefs to deaf children. The church service of a hearing church is very confusing and boring to the deaf.