Those who do not suffer from deafness find it hard to imagine the isolation associated with being excluded from the audible world, especially from conversations. ‘Deaf awareness’ is an obligation on all of us DEAFNESS IS estimated to affect one in seven people in the UK. The majority of these people were not born deaf; they have lost the hearing that they once had. For them, signing is not really an option because they have grown up in a world of sound; they have exchanged information by using sound and they have learned to communicate with family and friends in a world full of sound. We tend to take our ears for granted until they go wrong; because, until they go wrong, they work effortlessly day and night. It is difficult to imagine what it must be like to be deaf; but acqu