The Handicap of Deafness

Abstract

hardly, in our opinion, likely to justify itself, and indeed that is where the weakness of the book appears to lie. Much of it is emphatically for the specialist who will be somewhat irritated at matter which to him is self-evident, while the ordinary reader will find much which is technically outwith his judgment and will have to search through this to find what he really wants?a description of what deafness means to a deaf person, and what the possibilities of alleviation and education really are. The need for this is so crying?as indeed the writers realise?that it is the more disappointing to find it only among very much technical matter; and even when it is found, it assumes a knowledge which the ordinary person does not possess, or it makes its point by rather wearisome iteration instead of by description. Furthermore, the subject matter is limited to the completely deaf, and to the " severely deaf "; nothing is said of the needs or the treatment of the large class who are deaf enough to miss most group conversation and who cannot hear in a theatre, or who are handicapped in business life by failure to hear adequately. Much that is said of hearing " aids" no doubt applies to them also, but one would like to know more about the possibilities of learning to lip-read, and