Originally called the Comité International des Sports Silencieux (International Committee of Silent Sports), CISS was the first international athletic association for the deaf. In 1924, at the urging of Antoine Dresse of Belgium and Eugène Rubens-Alcais of France, representatives of several countries joined together to hold the first International Games for the Deaf in Paris. A permanent committee with representatives from several national sports associations was established to arrange further games and promote and sanction deaf sports worldwide.

CISS’s original membership consisted of France, Belgium, Great Britain, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. Rubens-Alcais was elected as first president, a post he held until 1953. Later CISS presidents included:

Oscar Ryden (1953-1955) Jens Peter Nielsen (1955-1961) Pierre Bernhard (1961-1971) Jerald M. Jordan (1971-1995) John M. Lovett (1995-2003) Donalda Kay Ammons (2003-2009) Craig A. Crowley (2009-2013) Valery Nikitich Rukhledev (2013-2018) Rebecca Adam (2018-2019) Kang Chen (2019-2020) Gustavo de Araujo Perazzolo (2020-2022)

Dresse was CISS’s secretary-general for the first 43 years of its existence, until 1967. He was succeeded by Osvald Dahlgren (1967-1973), Knud Søndergaard (1974-1997), and Donalda Kay Ammons (1997-2004). After 2004, the position of secretary-general was eliminated from the CISS board and replaced by a full-time paid executive officer.

After the 1924 Games, further International Games for the Deaf were held quadrennially. CISS expanded rapidly, with Japan and the United States joining in 1935, New Zealand and Australia joining in 1955, and Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay joining in 1957, giving the organization a truly worldwide scope. The International Games were suspended in 1939 after the outbreak of World War II, but resumed in 1949. That year also saw the first International Winter Games for the Deaf, held in Austria.

The organization received a further boost in 1955 when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) granted CISS Olympic standing, recognizing the high quality of its competitions and allowing it to use the Olympic flag at its events.

In 1960 Antoine Dresse inaugurated the Dresse Cup, a deaf men’s tennis tournament modeled after the hearing Davis Cup competition. The Maere Cup, a similar women’s tournament named for deaf tennis great Germaine Maere, followed in 1968. In 1969, CISS also began to present the Rubens-Alcais Award biannually to national sports federations that had achieved outstanding results in promoting deaf sports in their home countries.

In 1979, the organization voted to change its name to the Comité International des Sports des Sourds (International Committee of Sports for the Deaf), which was felt to reflect its mission more accurately. Although CISS adopted English as its official language of correspondence in 1981, the French name of the group was retained as a nod to tradition. Meanwhile, the International Games for the Deaf were renamed the World Games of the Deaf in 1967, and then the World Games for the Deaf in 1977.

In 1985, at the suggestion of the IOC, CISS joined the International Coordinating Committee of Sports for the Disabled (ICC), which became the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in 1992. CISS asked for and was granted the right to continue its own World Games rather than join the Paralympics, as it would be difficult for deaf athletes to compete with physically disabled athletes on an equal basis.

This arrangement, however, produced unhappiness on all sides. The IPC did not provide the promised financing and support for the World Games for the Deaf, leaving many deaf athletic federations confused and short of funds. Meanwhile, some IPC members felt it was unfair for CISS to have voting rights in decisions regarding the Paralympics even though they did not participate. These difficulties led CISS to leave the IPC in 1995.

In 2001, the World Games for the Deaf were rechristened the Deaflympics with the consent of the IOC, which had formerly opposed the change. At the same time, CISS changed its name to its English form, becoming the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf (ICSD). Today, the ICSD has over 100 member nations worldwide.