[Sofia Kolotourou] Hi! My name is Sofia and I want to tell you about post-linguistic deafness.

When someone is born hearing normally, without any problem, s/he learns to speak.

By the time s/he is 3, a kid has learned to speak very well.

Therefore, if someone loses his/her hearing at the age of 3-4 or more, this means that by then s/he speaks normally.

This is what is called post-linguistic deafness.

People who are post-linguistic deaf speak almost naturally.

Obviously, with the passing of years without hearing their own voice, they can't give proper rhythm to their speech,

as other people do, so their speech sounds odd.

Post-linguistic deaf people go to normal schools where they communicate with the other children by reading their lips.

Most of them don't know sign language at all, as they don't need it to communicate.

The present number of postlinguistic deaf people in Greece is unknown, because their are no records about them.

Deaf people's organizations only address people who know sign language,

and in practice, the needs of post-linguistic deaf people are not covered by any institution or other official authority.

As people don't know about post-linguistic deafness, they are surprised when they meet a deaf person who speaks

and they are very baffled because they think that the person in front of them "cannot" be deaf, as s/he speaks.

Therefore post-linguistic deaf people are doubly excluded because on the one hand,

hearing people find it hard to accept them in their group, because they don't know how to communicate with them.

And on the other hand, deaf people who only communicate in sign language claim that they are the only "real deaf"

and that post-linguistic deaf people "should" learn sign language

and stop communicating in the only way they learned as children, i.e. with their mouth!

For the post-linguistic deaf, the presence of an interpreter is meaningless, because they don't know sign language.

They want other things: In spoken language, they want the speaker to enunciate slightly more slowly and clearly than usually.

They need good light so that they can read his/her lips. And where this is feasible,

they want speeches to be distributed in writing, e.g. in meetings, presentations, discussions, as well as in theaters.

Moreover, it is very easy to distribute written texts, as they are all computer-written and can be printed by pressing a key.

A year ago, the post-linguistic deaf became organized in a facebook groub called "Κουφοχωριό" (Deaf Village)

This group does not exclude the participation of pro-linguistic deaf people, and it encourages the participation of people with cochlear implants.

Cochlear implants are acoustic devices that are surgically inserted.

Children who get a cochlear implant when they are very small are very likely to develop

language and speech, and to speak exactly like the post-linguistic deaf (they even often speak on the phone)

It's time that people should learn about post-linguistic deafness and the swift development of cochlear implants.

The image of deafness is changing in the 21st century, and is very different from the stereotypes in our barins.

My name is Sofia, I'm 39, I'm a cytologist physician and writer, and I have been post-linguistically deaf since I wa very younf.

In 2010, I wrote the book «Κουφός είσαι ρε; Δεν ακούς» ("Are you deaf or what? Can't you hear?") published by KaPsiMi, where I speak about events in my life that are related to post-linguistic deafness.

In 2011 I created the Facebook group Κουφοχωριό (Deaf Village) for the above-mentioned reasons, as well as, recently, a forum with the same name.

Write "Κουφοχωριό" in Google and come and find us to learn more about post-linguistic deafness

but also about the developments in cochlear implants and auxiliary technology.

Via the internet and medical progress, we deaf people can communicate successfully too, without intermediaries.

Deafness does not mean isolation, as it used to. Come and find us in order to learn what deafness means in the 21st century.

Thank you very much.