Deafness can cause difficulty communicating and people who are deaf may be at risk of phys

Deafness can be mild, moderate, severe or profound. People with mild deafness have some difficulty following speech, mainly in noisy situations. Those with moderate deafness have difficulty following speech without a hearing aid. Those who are severely deaf rely a lot on lip-reading, even with a hea

Congenital deafness similarly may or may not be genetic. For example, it may be associated with a white forelock, and be caused by a genetic disease called Waardenburg syndrome. In fact, more than half of congenital hearing loss is inherited. Alternatively, congenital deafness may be due to a condition or infection to which the mother was exposed during pregnancy, such as the rubella virus.