‘The only thing we can’t do is hear’: the deaf pupil who beat Fife council in court

Niamdh Braid, from Glenrothes, was found to be accessing only 70% of what was being said in her class, even with hearing aids. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

The slogan on Niamdh Braid’s powder-blue sweatshirt puts it plainly enough: “I define my own deaf identity.”

“We’re in a world that’s built for hearing people,” says the 16-year-old from Glenrothes in Fife, “and we have to navigate through it to find what works best for us.”