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Models of Deafness

The three models of deafness are rooted in either social or biological sciences. These are the medical (or infirmity) model, the social model, and the cultural model. The model through which the deaf person is viewed can impact how they are treated as well as their own self perception. In the medical model, deafness is viewed undesirable, and it is to the advantage of the individual as well as society as a whole to "cure" this condition. The social model seeks to explain difficulties experienced by deaf individuals that are due to their environment. In the cultural model, the Deaf belong to a culture in which they are neither infirm nor disabled, but rather have their own fully grammatical and natural language.

Medical Model of Deafness

The medical model of deafness originates from medical, social welfare and majority cultural notions of the absence of the ability to hear as being an illness or a physical disability. It stems from a more comprehensive and far-reaching medical model of disability. Under the perspective that deafness is an impairment, the inability to hear interferes with a person’s ability to respond to environmental cues, to communicate, and to enjoy aspects of mainstream culture such as music . People who experience hearing loss after acquiring a mastery of spoken language as well as those who are hard-of-hearing commonly identify with this model.

Within the medical model deafness is conceptualized from a "personal tragedy" stance, indicating that it should be avoided, eradicated, or normalized by all possible means. Often, due to this perspective, hearing parents may experience diagnosis of their child’s deafness as a tragedy. Implicit questions may naturally arise, such as: "By what criteria and by whom is the impairment construed as an infirmity; how did the infirmity arise; what are the risks and benefits of the available treatment, if any; what can be done to minimize the disabling effects of the infirmity?"

While medical ethics and law dictate that it is up to the patient (or the patient's legal representative) to decide the treatments he or she wishes, the press and professional literature are increasingly normalizing the discussion regarding using cochlear implants, oral education, and mainstream placement; all being popular choices under the medical model of deafness. The medical model suggests that, overall, the effects of deafness may be lessened through the use of technology such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, assistive listening devices, and lip reading .Similarly, doctors and scientists who engage in research are doing so simply because there is demand for information and for techniques which can restore hearing.

The view that deafness is a "disability" has economic consequences in political environments concerned with social welfare. It is the basis on which the governments in many developed countries provide financial support for the cost of cochlear implants and other therapies.

Cultural model

Within the cultural model of deafness, Deaf people see themselves as a linguistic and cultural minority community rather than a “disability group”. Advocates of deaf culture use a capital “D” to distinguish cultural Deafness from deafness as a pathology.

Those within the Deaf community tend to be, but are not limited to, deaf people, especially congenitally deaf people whose primary language is the sign language of their nation or community, as well as their hearing or deaf children (hearing children of Deaf adults are typically referred to as CODAS), families, friends and other members of their social networks. It may also include people within the social science professions which seek to identify, define and conceptualize the very essence of what constitutes a culture or cultural model of human experience, as well as professionals in mediating roles between cultures, notably persons engaged in activities of simultaneous interpretation, and schools. This cultural model of deafness represents the natural evolution of the social networks of a minority language group. From the conceptual framework of the cultural model come implicit questions, such as: How is deafness influenced by the physical and social environment in which it is embedded; What are the interdependent values, mores, art forms, traditions, organizations, and language that characterize this culture?

Both the medical model and the social model are seen, at the least, to be in conflict with, and at the most, inapplicable to deafness when viewed from the cultural model of deafness.

Cultural deafness and the medical model

In contrast to the medical model of Deafness, the deaf community, rather than embrace the view that deafness is a "personal tragedy", sees all aspects of the deaf experience as positive. The birth of a deaf child is seen as a cause for celebration.

Deaf people point to the perspective on child rearing they share with hearing people. For example, hearing parents may feel that they relate to their hearing child because of their experience and  intimate understanding of the hearing state of being. It follows that a deaf parent will have an easier experiences raising a deaf child since deaf parents have an intimate understanding of the deaf state of being. Evidence of deaf parental success is revealed in scholastic achievement. Deaf children who have deaf parents that communicate in sign language from birth, generally perform better in their academics than other deaf children with hearing parents. This includes children who adapted using speech and lipreading, prosthetic devices such as the cochlear implant, artificial language systems such as Signing Exact English and Cued Speech, and hearing aid technology^{[citation needed]}. Deaf children acquiring sign languages from birth also reach language milestones at similar rates to their hearing counterparts, unlike, deaf children born to hearing parents acquiring speech.

According to research in the social sciences, membership in the deaf community is a matter of culturally determined behaviors and not of medical diagnosis. Thus membership is not seen as the act of admittance by an insider group or even by anyone at all, but by examining individual behavior to determine how closely it resembles the known culturally determined behaviors found in the community of deaf people. Since sign language stands as the single most valued aspect of deaf culture, it reveals whether an individual belongs to this language minority in the same manner as embracing the Spanish language reveals identity with Hispanic-American culture, another example of a language minority. Groups disadvantaged by majority culture and practices, such as the deaf community, have commonalities with other groups. For example, people with disabilities, gay people, and women are not linguistic minorities, as are members of the deaf community, since their culturally determined behaviors do not center on a unifying language as in the communities of Hispanic-Americans and Native-Americans. Gay culture and American deaf culture, both of which experience the disadvantages of being minority cultures, bear resemblance to one another in that most members of these two minority groups do not share their minority identity with their parents and cannot develop it at home. However, gay culture does not rally around a unifying language as is seen with a minority language group like the community of deaf people.