HEARING LOSS AND DEAFNESS
Language defines us as human.
Hearing is how we learn speech. As we learn our language as children, we use that language to organize how we see the world.
Hearing is how we best receive the speech sounds that contain the ideas, feelings and personalities of other humans.
If we lose hearing, we lose a bit of of our humanity. The device we call the ear performs the task of translating the analog sound waves in air into digitized nerve impulses in the organ of hearing. The process of hearing involves two principal stages. First, the sound waves traveling in the air are reproduced in the fluids of the cochlear portion of the inner ear. The structures which accomplish this task include the outer ear, the ear passage, and the ear drum and bony chain. The next phase of hearing involves the hair cell array in the organ of Corti of the cochlea, which analyses the waves and converts them into the complex digital code carried by the nerve of hearing to the brain. Additional stages of hearing include the brain which constantly adjusts the cochlea depending on what we intend to hear. Our ears exhibit miraculously sensitivity .
Disorders of the ear may affect either or both stages. The two over all types of loss are: conductive.......caused by problems affecting the first stage of sound processing nerve loss.........resulting from malfunctions in the second and later stages