First off I would like to thank you for taking an interest in my book <3
1.5k readers in just a week is insane! Thank you so much!
But anyway :)
Zihao has sensorineural hearing loss which means he has nerve damage in his ear that contects to the brain. I will be using the term 'deaf' because he has a hearing loss at a certain degree that fits the term. I do not use 'Deaf' because that is referred to someone born without hearing.
Since his hearing aids are specially made by UA they have extra components added to them. Such as cancelling vocal quirks.
They auto adjust to every situation in terms of loudness which is why he won't adjust them unless he is using his old ones.
I myself am deaf, so if you have any questions about the deaf community or even just writing about it, please come to me! I will gladly answer any question without taking offense. There are many books that wrongly portray hearing loss and it can be offensive to many people. So there is no harm in asking as long as you are polite.
Here are some questions I have received about Zihao's hearing that I'll answer here since it seems they are common
Q. If he is deaf how can he talk?
A. He lost his hearing as a child, meaning he learned to talk before hand.
Q. Why doesn't he use sign language?
A. He does! He just prefers to speak verbally. He learned incase he needs it for certain situations or people!
Q. Does he have to be deaf?
A. Yes :) I made him this way to better support the deaf community. Many books don't have hoh characters and if they do some aren't written fully.
Thank you for reading and I hope to see you again in future chapters!