What matters deafness of the ears, when the mind hears?

After reading this article, i was left awed and somewhat stunned. I bet if humanity ever pass on, our inheritors for the title of the most intelligent beings on Earth could possibly be the dolphins.

Anyway, how does this relate to the site theme? Well. :)

They developed a sign language to communicate with the dolphins, and the results were remarkable. Not only do the dolphins understand the meaning of individual words, they also understand the significance of word order in a sentence. (One of their star dolphins, Akeakamai, has learned a vocabulary of more than 60 words and can understand more than 2,000 sentences.)

Particularly impressive is the dolphins’ relaxed attitude when new sentences are introduced. For example, the dolphins generally responded correctly to "touch the frisbee with your tail and then jump over it". This has the characteristics of true understanding, not rigid training.

Read on…

A poignant account of growing up deaf, and the sweetness of the pieces falling into place in the end.

The extract below is one I can relate to - It echoes my own experience so well.

When I was five, I was diagnosed with a moderate to severe hearing loss. I muddled along in school, receiving a hearing aid in 4th grade and speech therapy. Because I “functioned” so well and was able to keep up my grades, I was pretty much lost in the system. Teachers lavished praise on the “girl with the hearing loss.” My loneliness was often overlooked.

Read on…