Child of deaf adult
person raised by one or more deaf people
A child of deaf adult, often known by the acronym CODA, is a person who was raised by one or more deaf parents or legal guardians. Ninety percent of children born to deaf adults are not deaf, resulting in a significant and widespread community of CODAs around the world, although whether the child is hearing, deaf, or hard of hearing has no effect on the definition. The acronym KODA (kid of deaf adult) is sometimes used to refer to CODAs under the age of 18.
The term was coined by Millie Brother who also founded the organization CODA, which serves as a resource and a center of community for children of deaf adults as an oral and a sign language, and bicultural, identifying with both deaf and hearing cultures. CODAs often navigate the border between the deaf and hearing worlds, serving as liaisons between their deaf parents and the hearing world in which they reside.
CODA identity
Many CODAs do not identify with the "hearing world" or the "deaf world". Rather, they simply identify as CODAs: a bridge between the two "worlds" as they often find themselves in the middle of two. While CODAs might find some similarities between themselves and their hearing peers, they might also find that their upbringing within the Deaf community and culture sets them apart. CODAs with cochlear implantation are often even more mixed between these worlds. They communicate with their families through signing but with the hearing world through talking.
The public source identifies “Child of deaf adult” as person raised by one or more deaf people. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Child, deaf and adult.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2591645. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Child of deaf adult” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.