India - Survey of Disabled Persons , July-Dec 1990, NSS 47th Round

Hearing disability:
This referred to persons' inability to hear properly. Hearing disability was judged taking into consideration the disability of the better ear. In other words, if one ear of a person was normal and the other ear had total hearing loss, then the person was judged as normal in hearing for the purpose of the survey. Hearing disability was judged without taking into consideration the use of hearing aids (i.e., the position for the person when hearing aid was not used). Persons with hearing disability might be having different de grees of disability, such as profound, severe or moderate. A person was treated as having 'profound' hearing disability if he/she could not hear at all or could only hear loud sounds, such as, thunder or understands only gestures. A person was treated as having 'severe' hearing disability if he/she could hear only shouted words or could hear only if the speaker was sitting in the front. A person was treated as having 'moderate' hearing disability if his/her disability was neither profound nor severe. Suc h a person would usually ask to repeat the words spoken by the speaker or would like to see the face of the speaker while he/she spoke or would feel difficulty in conducting conversations.