Research shows that 1 in 6 of the UK adult population is affected by hearing loss, but this invisible disability is often overlooked or forgotten (Hearing Link Services, 2022).
On this National Deaf Awareness Week, our Project assistant, Jen, shares her personal experience as someone with profound hearing loss and how this impacts her at work. Jen describes her hearing loss, offers some helpful tips on communicating with people who have a hearing loss or are deaf and celebrates the strengths her deafness provides her.
I wasn’t always deaf. Well, actually, I was but just not diagnosed until 14 months old when I received my first two hearing aids for a mild hearing loss.
Fast forward 23 years, and I write this as someone with a profound hearing loss who wears two cochlear implants. This means that I hear vibrations as opposed to sound, and that is if I can hear it in the first place. But I describe my hearing level as I cannot hear anything, which is handy when I sleep!
Sometimes people are intimidated when speaking to someone with a hearing loss, and they can feel uncomfortable or out of their depth. It’s completely normal, but I promise that we aren’t scary!
Tips on how to communicate with people who have a hearing loss or are deaf
Below, I have included some key tips and hints on how to communicate with someone who has a hearing loss or is deaf and relies on lipreading:- Face the deaf/hearing loss person and keep your mouth clear of hands – This allows the individual to know you are talking to them and to allow them a clear view to lipread.
- Speak clearly and normally – People often panic and think they need to shout or talk really slow, but really, this distorts the mouth pattern when speaking, making it harder to lipread
- Be patient – We are doing our best to lipread, but if we depend on lipreading alone, we may only catch up to 40% of what is said. Not only this, other factors come into play when we lipread and hear someone, such as how tired we are, how well we know you and your speech pattern, background noise, etc.
- If we ask you to repeat more than two times, we aren’t messing with you! Sometimes you may have to change the sentence for us to understand. With some patience and kindness, we’ll get there together 🙂
Celebrating deafness
I’m going to tell you how and why I am grateful for my deafness:- It has given me unique life experiences and taught me personal resilience that I can apply to any given situation
- It has given me the opportunity to represent my country in deaf football, which has allowed me to meet fellow deaf individuals I would have never met otherwise.
- Finally, it helps me to be more observant. Not relying on my hearing means that I watch more. I watch nature, people interacting, and life – go and appreciate it for living in the moment.