While Marlee Matlin has been acting since she was seven, her Academy Award win for her film role in Children of a Lesser God still seemed impressive, considering it was her feature film debut.

Matlin has been deaf since she was 18 months old, but she has not let her hearing loss hold her back professionally, nor has she allowed herself to be relegated to only movie-of-the-week issue type of roles where deafness was the focal point of the character that she played. Her characters in shows like The West Wing and The L Word have been complex and interesting. That doesn't mean she away from subject matter specifically related to deafness either, as she famously put her lip reading ability to use for George Costanza on Seinfeld, with hilarious results.

Now she's taken on a stint on Dancing with the Stars. Many fans have wondered, how will this all work for Matlin? Her time on the show is not only a chance to face a personal challenge, but an opportunity to show many people a side of deaf culture they might not be aware of.

While some people might not understand how a deaf person could keep time to the music, Matlin explains how she does it, and that what she'll be doing on Dancing with the Stars is actually not that unusual.

“In a dance studio, I like the music to be turned up loud so I can follow along the bass line,” Matlin has explained. “But mostly, it's about that rhythm I have inside me. I've got groove because my heart beats just like everyone else's. The trick for me is to use what I've got to sync up with the music that comes through my dance partner's moves.

“In the end, it sounds complicated, but it's really not a big deal. Just ask the 30 million other deaf and hard of hearing Americans, and they'll say the same thing.”

ABC News quotes Bob Pollard, a psychologist who works at the University of Rochester's Deaf Wellness Center, who explains that it is extraordinarily rare for a deaf person to live in total silence.

"That is almost never the case," he said. "The vast majority have some degree of residual hearing, especially in the low frequency arena. There are lots of people who enjoy music to varying degrees."

Matlin's appearance on Dancing with the Stars is a chance for the hearing world to get a peek inside deaf culture, and for all to see that dance and music can be truly universal, no matter how or with what senses one appreciates them.

- Leslie Seaton, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Sources: New York Post, KansasCity.com, ABC News