Have you encountered someone in your community who has untreated hearing loss? You might have realized right away that this person had trouble communicating. Whether they were asking you to repeat yourself or a miscommunication made it clear that you were not being heard, it might have been obvious to you that hearing was a challenge. However, some people are remarkably adept at disguising their hearing loss. They might have strategies–conscious or unconscious–to work around difficulties in conversations and to make it seem like they are hearing what you have to say. These cases can be even more difficult, particularly when you realize that only a fraction of what you had been saying was being understood. What can you do to accommodate those with disclosed or undisclosed hearing loss in your community? If you work in a public-facing position, you will want to find professional and caring ways to meet these needs without making interactions more difficult or embarrassing. When you seek to accommodate hearing loss, these are the steps you can take to solve these problems on the spot and in the longer-term.
Starting the Conversation
If you find that a person in your community has untreated hearing loss, opening up a conversation about that need can be difficult. You might not want to embarrass that person or to put them on the spot. However, offering accommodations is necessary to make the conversation effective and fluid. You can begin by asking if the person can hear you in the specific environment. Contextualizing the hearing situation can prevent you from putting that person on the spot unnecessarily. If the person admits that it is difficult to hear in that context, then you can ask what you can do to help. The accommodation strategy might be as simple as speaking more loudly or standing closer to the person. You might want to step into a quieter place to have your conversation. Keeping a direct line of sight between you can be very helpful, offering the visual cues of mouth movements, facial expressions, and gestures to support the audible communication. Make sure to listen carefully to what that person requests, as each individual has unique needs when it comes to accommodating hearing loss.
Connecting with Resources
You are not alone in seeking to support this person in your community, and there are more resources available to you than you might realize. Technology is improving rapidly when it comes to accommodations for hearing loss, and the new tools for communication can make things much easier for all involved. Closed captioning is not only available for television, film, and video but new speech-to-text technology can create a live feed of text to assist what a person is saying. Whether on a videoconference platform or in person, live captioning can be helpful, if imperfect. Telecoil hearing loops are also available in many public places. This technology creates a field in which a person can wear a headset or connect with their own hearing aids to get a direct feed from a microphone. This technology is particularly useful for public address in places where background noise is an issue. If you realize that a person is hard of hearing, hearing impaired, or deaf, then there are more advanced resources such as interpretation, text-based information, or assistive technology to support these needs.
Treatment: Going Beyond Accommodations
When you seek to accommodate the hearing needs of a person in your community, you are taking the crucial first step toward helping that person communicate clearly and easily. However, accommodations for untreated hearing loss do not address the underlying issue. If you can encourage this person to get treatment for the cause of miscommunication, then you will be doing an even greater service to that person. Treatment in the form of hearing aids or other assistive technology is a lasting service, making possible better communication in a wide range of settings and sonic contexts. When you find the right time to encourage hearing assistance, you will be offering an important form of support to this member in your community. When you open up the conversation about hearing loss, you can transition into asking if you can help that person schedule a hearing test. Our hearing health professionals will take over from there!