I’ve seen videos of people sitting in the doctor’s office getting their implants turned on, and they’re responding to questions like, “Can you hear me?” or “How is the volume?” How do they know what they’re being asked if they’ve never before heard how language sounds?
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To directly answer your question. I think that when someone is deaf, they have the visual input of lipreading and use that as a visual aid for language, much like a blind person has braille for reading. When you add sound to the lip movements, they know what they are saying. I’ll give an example. I’m profoundly deaf and I wear a hearing aid. If i were to watch a TV show, but use subtitles, when i read the words, i can “hear” those words very clear. If I looked away from the subs, the words become garbled immediately, I might catch a few words but mostly not. When I return to reading the subs, it becomes clear again. I think those with CI’s use a mix of lipreading from a very young age and the sound and that helps them to know what is being said in their own language.
I hope that makes sense.
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