Hearing impairment (HI) is inability to hear or having difficulty in hearing from one ear or both ears. It could be,
partial to complete hearing loss and can be in the range of mild, moderate, severe, and profound hearing loss.
Hearing impairment can be congenital i.e., from birth or acquired, which is acquired in the lifetime due to various
reasons like trauma, infection, accidental, drug toxicity, age related(senile) cause etc. The challenges in these two
types of hearing loss have various challenges. These challenges faced by individuals with hearing impairment can
be understood by people in the society with the help of stories about these individuals. And hence, we need to
take help of books to understand these individuals, their strengths and their challenges better. Books can also be
helpful for us to understand, how people with HI communicate, how diagnosis of hearing impairment is made,
various modalities of treatment of hearing impairment and so on. We will now explore various categories of books
which can help us understand HI.
A) Books that talk about Hearing Impairment
This category includes books which talk about the science behind hearing impairment, the culture around
deafness, the importance of sign language and various autobiographical accounts by deaf people.
- Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks was a neurologist and an author of many bestselling books based on various developmental
difficulties. Here, in this book he talks about sign language – which is a visual language and hence the title.
He talks about the importance of this language in the world of a deaf person and its implication on
communication in our society. - Deafness: An Autobiography
It is a book by David Wright, who was a person with Hearing Impairment and faced hearing loss at the
age of 7 years. He lived with HI and became a poet and renowned author in his adulthood. He has written
“Deafness: An Autobiography” where he gives his personal account on deafness and its history with an
element of humor, frankness and humility. He has also penned a few poems around deafness. - Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha’s Vineyard.
This is a book by Nora Ellen Groce, an anthropologist who talks about a town named Martha’s Vineyard
in 1800s in the United States of America in this book. In this town, the prevalence of Hearing Impairment
was as high as 1 in 150 persons (prevalence all over the world is around 1 in 6000-7000). She talked about
this hereditary deafness in this town and how people in this town showed right spirit of being an inclusive
society by learning sign language, thus helping the people with HI. - Books by Harlane Lane
Harlane Lane was an American Psychologist who researched on speech, deaf culture, and sign language.
He has authored more than dozen books on hearing impairment to make people see closely and
understand HI. Some of the titles by him are-
“A Journey into Deaf World”, “For Hearing People Only – Answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about the deaf community , its culture and the deaf reality” ;“The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry”
and many more.
B) Books for children to understand HI
This category includes picture books, especially for young children, who can be sensitized about hearing
impairment from a young age itself. These books help children understand, ‘it’s okay to be different’, how
each one of us has different challenges, how each one of us is unique and still each one of us can live in an
inclusive society.
1. Max Learns Sign Language by Adria F Kline
This book tells us a story about Max who learns sign language to ensure that he can communicate with
his new friend (a friend with HI). The commitment shown by him to make the effort to connect with his
friend is amazing.
2. Making a New Friend- Stories of Maya and Sid by Akhand Dugar
This talks about two kids, who are different yet similar in an unusual way. This book can be a good medium
to talk about cochlear implant and its relation to hearing impairment in a simple language for kids .
3. When Adil Speaks, Words Dance by Lavanya Karthik
Again, a wonderful book by Lavanya Karthik, it talks about Sign language and how it helps Adil to
communicate with others.
4. Bessie needs Hearing Aids by Jenna Harmke
This book talks about hearing loss and its detection. It can be a useful resource for children who have mildmoderate hearing loss and are in need of hearing aids, but do not understand its usefulness in their lives
and are confused by their ‘differentness’ from other school kids.
5. I have a sister. My sister is Deaf by Jeane Whitehouse Peterson
This is a book which has a poetry depicting a child’s experience of having a hearing-impaired sibling as a
family member at home. The sibling talks about the strengths and difficulties of her hearing-impaired
sister and thus shows her love for her in a wonderful yet simple way.
The books about hearing Impairment are not limited to mentioned in here, and can be explored in various genres
like fiction, young adult, resource material for parents of deaf children and so on.
Do explore these titles and find for yourself more other. Do mention in comments, if you find more interesting
titles which could be useful for all of us.
For knowing more about hearing impairment, you can watch this YouTube video.
