"Embarrassed Student" on the forum just had a college experience that, to use an idiom, "really takes the cake." "Embarrassed Student" is hard of hearing and was reading the class material and didn't realized the instructor was trying to get her attention. Next thing, "Embarrassed Student" heard the professor state to the entire class that she (Student) was not "retarded."

I don't know how I would have reacted in Embarrassed Student's shoes. Her reaction was to laugh to herself and feel embarrassed. Perhaps my reaction would have been to march down to the college's disability office, tell them about this experience, and demand that they immediately embark upon a program to educate every single professor on that campus about hearing loss as well as other disabilities.

Did you have an experience similar to Embarrassed Student's? How did you handle it?

A deaf killer who grew up on the streets and was never taught sign language, has been given a hefty sentence. His education - what there was of it - was poor. He could not even go to trial for seven years because he had to be taught sign language in order to understand the charges he faced.

An earlier news article reported that he had a low IQ in the 60s, which by definition would have made him mildly intellectually disabled. Plus, instead of learning real sign language, he reportedly only had a family based system of home signs. Academically, he scored far below peers.

So this provoked a thought in my mind: when there is no true sign language but only a system of home signs, does this mean that a person is incapable of understanding right versus wrong? Can someone who is mildly intellectually disabled understand the difference between right and wrong? Was he really intellectually disabled or did he have a low IQ only because of his limited English? Prior to his trial, two experts thought he had been faking communication problems to avoid trial. If he knew how to fake it, then did that mean he did in fact understand the difference between right and wrong - whether or not he knew real sign language?

Cases like this one raise more questions than answers.

Related blog post: Low Functioning Deaf Killer to Be Freed?

In response to a reader inquiry, I have developed this list of sources of help for deaf and hard of hearing victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. There is certainly a need to increase awareness of this information. Just last week, a deaf man killed his deaf wife on their 10th anniversary.  Would she be alive today if she had known the information on this list? I don't know. I do hope that the presence of this information on the About.com Deafness site will help someone someday.

Some About.com Deafness blog posts continue to draw comments over the years.  A reader who is a musician with hearing loss, recently posted on the blog post "Desperately Seeking...Analog Hearing Aids." This musician said digital hearing aids simply don't work when he is making music. Plus, he mentions a blind study of digital versus analog hearing aids (I am not aware of this study) that allegedly found people actually had no preference. So many readers have complained about how companies are only making digital hearing aids while they prefer the sound quality of analog hearing aids. Apparently there would still be a market for analog hearing aids...if companies would make them.