Pre-lingual Deafness

Deafness that occurs before a person acquires spoken language, either present from birth or developing in early childhood. People with pre-lingual deafness typically use sign language as their primary means of communication and may have limited literacy in written/spoken languages, which has significant implications for web accessibility. Text-heavy interfaces and captions alone may not be sufficient — sign language video content, visual navigation cues, simple language, and sign language dictionaries are important accessibility considerations for this population. The distinction between pre-lingual and post-lingual deafness is critical for designing accessible web interfaces, as the two groups have fundamentally different communication needs.