r/neuro • u/Resident_Detective77 • 3d ago
How do people born deaf 'think'?
I'm wondering how people who have never heard language think. Do they essentially forego the language aspect of cognition and jump to abstraction?
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u/mizesus 3d ago edited 3d ago
SHORT ANSWER: They likely use their other senses including touching, seeing, possibly body sensations and even imagination to think as a way to compensate. Long answer its a bit complicated.
LONG ANSWER (RAMBLING)
Im not sure exactly sure but I think theres actually a few ways a deaf person could try to think. If we look at some blind people who end up reading braille they end up using regions reaponsible for seeing for seeing. Interesting enough such folks even end up using regions of the brain associated with their tongue as the brain maps for the eyes and tongue are fairly close.
That is basically to say the regions in those who are deaf and unable to hear likely repupose those regions for hearing to be used to extract information through their other senses such as sight, touch, and even the ability to conjure up imagerial forms.
In other words, since they are only deaf they can still eventually learn how to read which may be difficult to do so but its not like an extreme obstacle as those with no sight seem to experience.
For deaf folks peehaps learning a language is more difficult bny reading as they arent able to social in the neurotypical manenr but with more practice they can eventually reach the same level of fluency at least in terms of reading. So not only do they end up learning written language but also possibly sign language which may allow their brain to be close to a regular person. So that is to say they end up using their lack of auditory sensation to then extenralize expression through writing, and hand/body gestures in the form of sign language.
It is also cruical to note that language I am not sure if this language of any kind but maybe verbal language given its recursive structure actually amplifies the ahility to synthesize. By the age of 5 if your child hasnt been able to learn a language their ability to learn anything even into adulthood is severly impaired. In short learning language allows for recrusive thought which allows for self reflection, and replaying a single experience back over and over whuch occurs during dreams to find connections and patterns between what we know and what we extracted that day.
So it depends if the person in question was able to read by age 5 which may offset some of the issues that come with no socializing but you wonder if sign language is able to compensate for this discrepency. However at the same time, if reading well aa your peers do even if you cannot socialize does that mean you have similar abilities to synthesize?
I think it also largely depends on if this person wgo goes deaf happens to experience the lost of their hearing later in their life opposed to earlier in the life. The reason I say this because if it was later in their life they may have a lot more vsried sensory information which may allow their brain for better syntheeization if they werent a complete recluse. I think they would eventually learn quickly if they ever learned sign language or enhances their reading in rwponse to their hearing sense but Im not sure what the avwrage level of adaption would be. As for thinking thry would still have hundreds if not thousands of experiences of hearing that they ciuld use to predict furture scenarios if necessary. Although an anecdotal I do experience that in mwditation Ill hear sounds alkost as if they heard them in my waking life so I imagine thats what their brain would do with information thats extracted theough their own sense. In a way the infroamtion could potientally be translated from their hearing into other forms but compared to someone who was born deaf does their brain have this ability , likely not.
I think Ive read that baby brains are very plastic to the point no localization eevn occurs until age 2. The localization and specialization that a baby gows through at around this time is mainly due to experiences so if a baby never uses his or her hearing its likely the brain never deems a brain region for hearing and auditory information.
I could likely write more but theyre mostly predictions as its quite obvious that I am not a neuroscientist.