This chapter is concerned with the way in which the young deaf people saw themselves, and is largely based on information from the interviews with them themselves. Some comparisons with information from their parents are made in the next chapter. It begins by opening the discussion on whether there is such a thing as a typical deaf person. It examines what the young people felt about their own deafness, what it was like to grow up as a deaf person, and the extent to which the young people were involved with the Deaf community and with Deaf politics.

In writing this, we are aware that the young people we interviewed, their families and probably readers of this book will differ in their understanding of what is desirable for deaf people making the transition into adulthood. Some will look to the group to see the extent to which they are proud of being deaf and identify with the Deaf community. Others will see success in terms of the extent to which the young people have been able to minimise the consequences of their deafness, have overcome it and lived their lives alongside hearing people. Within the group, the variety of potentially desirable outcomes arises partly because of the diversity of the group, based as it is on those parents and children recruited at the preschool stage, because the children were known to have a hearing loss.