Deaf cat in foster home

I am a foster for a cat rescue, and I took in another foster cat last night.  She is about 5-6 months old, and our rescue pulled her from the animal shelter.  She is a cool cat, very vocal and affectionate.  Medium-length hair, tortoiseshell pattern, green eyes.

This morning I started to notice that as I was talking to her, she never turned her head or even her ears toward me.  The more I watched, the more I realized that her ears hardly move at all!  No matter what you do (shake a "jingly" ball, talk loudly, "Here kitty kitty", etc), her ear expression doesn't change.  When she is sleeping, she does not wake up when I walk into the room or talk to her - she only reacts if I touch her.  While she was drinking, I shook a paper loudly behind her head, and then I ripped it in half.  Her ears did not even flicker.

She will turn to look at us if we walk close to her, but I think she feels the vibration of our feet.  My husband thinks her balance is slightly impaired as well, though I haven't noticed anything yet.

I think that this girl is deaf, and I have never cared for a deaf cat before.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated!  Are there any special things I should be doing for her?  Anything I should avoid?  Can you recommend any books or articles that I could read?

She seems to be getting along just fine in the world, but if there is anything I can do to make her path easier, I would like to do it.

Bless you and your rescue group for pulling this kitty!  I have no experience with dealing with a deaf cat, but I searched out site and did a Google search and found several helpful threads and sites. 

http://www.thecatsite.com/newsearch?search=deaf+cat

https://www.google.com/search?q=dea...la:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb

From the brief reading I did, sounds like there's a lot of hope and help out there.

I have a cat that developed deafness in her old age. I guess the only difference is that if she is not looking in your general direction, or is sleeping, you have to put something in front of her face or touch her to get her attention when you want to show things to her. Tink, tink, tinking the plate of food when it is coming into the room means nothing to the cat. You have to show her. For communicating with the cat, it is mostly simple hand gestures that you would use with any cat.

This cat will have to be an indoor cat, unless it has an outdoor enclosed, inescapable space. A friend's white deaf cat got out once. It was found sitting in the middle of the road on a busy street.

She used to wash her ears a lot. Now that she's deaf, she rarely washes her ears.

One difference I've noticed, is that the meow gets louder. Our cat can tell when we come home. She howls the minute the door opens. We think it is the slight difference is air pressure when the front door is opened and closed.

She's adjusted well.

One of the cats we had when I was growing up was deaf! I don't remember that we did anything in particular that was different for her, but no one had the heart to scold her for anything.

She was a sweetheart, and probably the smartest cat we have ever had. She played a game where she would toss a button in the air and try to catch it again on her paw :-) She is the only cat I've ever had that loved the vacuum cleaner too! We had the kind that you pull the canister around behind it, and she would ride on it :-D