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Nowadays, there is no exact statistical data on the number of deaf people, just because there is no clear evaluation criterion on the moment of life starting from which a person is considered to be deaf. Still, from time to time the U.S. Department of Health conducts its surveys in order to obtain at least some tools to make rough estimations of how many people suffer from this defection in the country. One of the most recent surveys states that there are about 2-4 functionally deaf people per each thousand of hearing citizens of the United States. However, as it is noted in the study, if we include people with serious hearing damages into this list, it will be about 140 deaf and hearing-impaired people per a thousand of hearing ones.
At the same time, deafness is not considered to be a wide-spread phenomenon, as only 1-2% of people throughout the world are deaf. But these are not only people who cannot hear and will never be able to hear, as well as people using earphones or hearing with only one ear. It is a small percentage and a wide range of varieties of deafness that turn the learning perspectives of the deaf into an unusually difficult task. Further, this task is complicated by the fact that just like all other students, deaf students have different cognitive abilities, and therefore each student’s curriculum should be formed with particular accuracy.
Experts confirm that the teaching of the deaf should be special; it should differ from the teaching process in ordinary schools (Shantie & Hoffmeister, 2000). The idea of equal conditions and co-education with healthy children would be good, if there were fewer restrictions in the society. Thus, the best conditions for the preschool education and adaptation of deaf children are specialized schools and the opportunity to stay and develop among children with similar defections, being partly taught by deaf teachers who would teach children using the language they understand.
In addition, deaf teachers help deaf students to not only learn the sign language of the deaf, but they also teach them how to live full and exciting life being deaf (Shantie & Hoffmeister, 2000). Besides, defectologists working in the schools for deaf children cannot successfully conduct the work on education, training, and correction of development defects of an abnormal child without knowing the essence and nature of the defect. Therefore, their “natural” training experience plays an important role in preparing teachers-pathologists. Deaf teachers typically gain more practical knowledge from studying normal and pathological anatomy and physiology, fundamentals of neuropathology, and psychopathology in children.
Besides, hiring deaf teaching is a good example to show that the society is getting rid from audism – discrimination against the deaf not only by hearing population, but also by other deaf (Shantie & Hoffmeister, 2000). According to statistical data, only about 10% of the deaf are born and raised in families of deaf people (“real” deaf). The remaining 90% are hearing-impaired children born from hearing parents. Typically, these children learn to read lips, and study sign language much later or do not study it at all. At the same time, sign language for “real” deaf is an integral part of the culture of their community. Imposition of hearing aids, cochlear implants and even the application of lipreading techniques are considered by the “real” deaf in both the U.S. and in other countries as the manifestations of audism.
All these factors show that hiring deaf teacher is a step for improving the learning conditions of deaf children, as well as for creating better adaptation terms for them.

References
Shantie, C., & Hoffmeister, R. J. (2000). Why Schools for Deaf Children Should Hire Deaf Teachers: A Preschool Issue. Journal of Education, 182 (3), pp. 37-47.