Audism

Systemic discrimination and prejudice against deaf and hard of hearing people, rooted in the belief that hearing and spoken language are inherently superior to deafness and sign language. Coined by Tom Humphries in 1975, audism operates at individual, institutional, and societal levels — from assuming all people can hear, to designing communication systems exclusively around speech, to educational policies that prioritise oral language over sign language. In accessibility practice, audism manifests when captioning or sign language interpretation are treated as afterthoughts, when deaf people are expected to adapt to hearing norms rather than environments adapting to be inclusive, and when hearing people are not seen as sharing responsibility for communication access.