[Art-K]

When I think to myself, I “hear” myself “talking” within my mind (for illustration, also when I’m reading). Obviously, people who were born deaf think, but do they “hear” themselves in some way in their own minds? What is the form of their “thinking”? What, if anything, substitutes for phonetics in their reading? I suppose a similar question could be asked of people who are blind from birth: How do they “see” the images of what they touch?
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Name : Art-K, Gender : M, City : Washington, State : DC, Country : United States, 

[Kelly G.]

As someone who is now profoundly deaf and has been hard of hearing from birth, I can only answer this from my own perspective. I grew up using speech – reading and speaking. When I would try to think thoughts to myself, I often wound up speaking out loud (much to my sister’s amusement). When dreaming, I have always just “known” – as if it were ESP – the thoughts being transmitted. I was moderately hard of hearing for seven years, but serverely hard of hearing in my early years, and did not get a hearing aid till age 5 1/2. I’ve been using signs for about 10 years. I often find myself doing a combination of signing/mouthing to rememember things or to think things through. However, my dreams still tend to be of the “ESP” thing. On AOL there are deaf chats, and this has come up; I was surpised to learn a lot of other deaf people have this ESP dream experience.

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Name : Kelly G., Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Lesbian, Disability : Deaf, with bone growth disorder, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Pagan, City : Laurel, State : MD, Country : United States, Occupation : Librarian, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, 

[JJ30546]

People think in the language they were brought up with. Since ASL (American Sign Language) is not spoken, people who become deaf before they learn a language (In this case, most likely English,) they literally don’t hear themselves think. I have worked with deaf/hoh (hard of hearing) individuals. When they’re counting something, say, how much money they’ll need for lunch, the deaf/hoh individual counts in sign language, much in the same way we would say ‘one, two, three…’ I have asked the same question, and a friend who also works with the deaf/hoh community stated that ‘all people think in concepts. words are merely verbally expressed concepts, but are concepts nonetheless.’ Which leads me to conclude that deaf/hoh individuals think in signs, or simply pictoral images within their minds.

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Name : JJ30546, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian, City : Dallas/FW Area, State : TX, Country : United States, Occupation : college student, Education level : High School Diploma, Social class : Upper middle class, 

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