There are many myths and misconceptions that hearing individuals believe about Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Deaf-Blind individuals. Due to these myths and negative misconceptions the Deaf population is impacted negatively, therefore hearing individual’s ignorance can have significant impacts on the Deaf. The three myths and misconceptions are Sign Language is bad for Deaf people, all Deaf people can read lips, and all Deaf individuals benefit from hearing devices. A myth and misconception that is believed by many hearing individuals which can negatively impact a Deaf individual is that “Sign Language is bad for Deaf people”. Hearing individuals believe that learning Sign Language can confuse Deaf children as well as make them unable to communicate with hearing individuals. Learning Sign Language is not bad for a Deaf individual, not learning Sign Language or not being exposed to Sign Language will negatively impact Deaf individuals. Sign Language is a language as well as a form of communication, not being exposed to language that is intelligible to any individual can have lasting and negative effects to language acquisition as well as learning. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with exposing Deaf individuals to Sign Language and there is no evidence to prove that it is “bad”. One of the most common myths and misconception that hearing individuals believe is that all Deaf people have the ability to read lips. Hearing individuals believe this is true for Deaf individuals who use the …show more content…
Deaf children should be exposed to language particularly Sign Language as soon as their deafness is detected. Without the exposure to a good language model Deaf individuals will loose their window of opportunity to improve their language development, which can negatively impact a Deaf individual by causing a risk for linguistic