For people with hearing loss, a lack of assistive listening devices in an auditorium is as much a barrier to enjoyment of a performance as a steep flight of stairs would be to someone with a mobility disorder.
Help Childen With Hearing Loss Be Camp-Ready
Alongside the typical checklist for camp preparations, such as bug spray and sunscreen, consider preparing for scenarios where your child may need to speak up about communication needs and otherwise self-advocate so they can fully participate.
Hear Well for the Holidays
Statistically speaking, half of grandparents and great-grandparents have significant hearing loss. So do about one in 10 of the aunts, uncles, or adult friends ages 55 to 64. Plus, we know that among adults exposed to loud noise—at work or in everyday life—about one in five has a hard time hearing speech. This can be a real hindrance to enjoying the holidays when all we want to do is connect with one another and share life’s joys.
Create a Communication-Friendly Home
Creating a communication-friendly home does not cost any more money than a home that was not designed to be deaf-friendly.
17 Misconceptions About People with Hearing Loss
Misconceptions about people with hearing loss are commonplace – some are antiquated stereotypes, while others just incorrect assumptions. It’s easy enough to get the wrong idea, as hearing loss can be an invisible disability – unlike the wheelchair that signals a mobility challenge.
Are You Faking It?
“Fake it until you make it” is a common phrase most of us have heard at some point in our lives. While I don’t remember when I first heard these words, I do recall receiving this advice multiple times early in my career from colleagues and mentors of all ages.
Redefined Justice
By Casey Dandrea
Bob Downs was 18 years old when he received his first hearing loss diagnosis. Heading home from school one afternoon, he wandered curiously into an audiology clinic offering free hearing tests and agreed to take one. The audiologist informed him he had a substantial hearing loss and would benefit from hearing aids sold by the clinic. Skeptical and not willing to purchase hearing aids, Bob declined the treatment.
More than a decade later, Bob was driving his five-year-old son, Timmy, home from school when he discovered his distress coming from the back seat. Timmy was crying because his throat was in pain from him screaming at his father. “He was desperately trying to get me to hear him talk about his day at school, but I couldn’t hear him,” Bob said.
Being unable to hear Tim encouraged Bob to take his hearing health more seriously and get another test. The new test results showed a hearing chart like the one presented to him as a teenager in the audiology clinic, but a lot worse. Bob has now been wearing hearing aids for 18 years.
Professionally, Bob’s hearing loss created some unexpected challenges. Shortly after he purchased his first pair of hearing aids, Bob worked in the call center of a large medical organization. His hearing loss combined with office background noise made it difficult for him to use the phone to schedule patient appointments, even with a telecoil feature for his hearing aids. The hectic environment of a medical office also made it challenging for Bob to communicate with colleagues and patients face-to-face. It was here that Bob first became highly aware of his professional limitations caused by hearing loss.
Bob was disappointed when his employer failed to provide proper workplace accommodations for his hearing loss. He brought the issue to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)—the federal agency enforces civil rights laws for employees with disabilities—but never received justice from his former employer. His former employer actually denied Bob’s hearing loss, leaving him disheartened and deeply offended.
Discouraged by this legal outcome and required to tend to an urgent family emergency, Bob resigned from his call center position at the medical clinic to return to clerical work, a previous and familiar area of expertise. Bob faced similar obstacles in this line of work, too, and felt as if he were no longer able to contribute to the support of his family. “I was constantly paranoid about failing to hear my boss or a doctor or a technician calling after me from behind and would not be able to see that they were talking to me,” Bob recalls.
Bob realized a new profession—one involving less listening—may benefit him. He returned to college and earned his Associates Degree in 2013, where he is currently working toward his Bachelor’s degree in User Experience (UX) Design, which involves coding to improve people’s interactions with technology.
Bob’s focus in UX Design is the Web Accessibility Initiative - Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA), an interface that defines a way to make web content and web applications more accessible to people with disabilities. The typical functionality used in websites is not available to those who rely on screen reading or cannot use a computer mouse. Bob wishes to expand the usage of the required technical code specifications, making more web applications accessible to people with disabilities.
Although Bob was once reluctant to accept his hearing loss diagnosis, he’s proud to understand and advocate for the benefits of hearing loss treatment today. He urges other folks not to ignore their difficulties hearing or, worse, an audiogram showing a profound hearing loss, as he did at 18.
Bob’s ability to remain persistent through discrimination and career changes is also commendable. Though Bob was unable to receive justice for the inequality he personally faced in his former workplace, he’s now creating his own form of justice for disability access through his newfound career.
Facing the Music
By Joe Mussomeli
Every family has holiday traditions—ours is to visit New York City. For the past five years, my mom, dad, and brother, Alex, have committed a single hour drive to experience the magic of the greatest city in the world during Christmas time. When we arrive each December, Alex and I are in awe of the magical sight of neon Christmas lights covering Radio City and the giant tree in Rockefeller Center. Despite our fascination with the city’s holiday decor, nothing we see outside compares to the highlight of our annual tradition, attending a musical performance on Broadway.
Our first musical, Annie, was an incredible experience for our family, but it was difficult for Alex. Born with a hearing loss, Alex uses a hearing aid and cochlear implant. Though his devices have greatly helped him over the years, there are some situations where their benefits are limited. While watching Annie, Alex had trouble understanding some of the lines that the actors were saying, missing every few words spoken. As a result, he couldn’t grasp the full context of the story or make sense of the audience’s reactions. Whenever the audience laughed, Alex would laugh along with them. He laughed knowing that he had missed a word, had lost a sentence, and didn’t catch the joke.
Alex followed this copycat formula for the next few Broadway plays we attended. When we saw The Lion King, he was amazed by the costumes and the bright lights, but he couldn’t hear Timon and Pumbaa singing “Hakuna Matata.” The beautiful music in Aladdin delighted Alex, but he didn’t pick up on Jafar calling Aladdin a “diamond in the rough.” After we saw Aladdin, I asked Alex if he enjoyed the musical. He told me that he did, but felt as if viewing the show was like trying to complete a project without all the tools. For Alex, the musical was a puzzle and he had lost a few pieces while assembling the final product.
Last December, my family and I watched our newest musical, Dear Evan Hansen, and it was Alex’s favorite so far. We arrived at the theater happy to know there was a closed captioning option for guests with hearing loss. Weeks before, my parents had called the captioning company that provides services for Broadway musicals and reserved a closed captioning device for Alex. He was given a small tablet and was told that the actors’ lines would appear on the tablet as they were spoken. Minutes later, the musical began, and Alex was just as invested in the show as the rest of the audience. Now, he could understand everything that was happening on stage! It was an enlightening experience for him. He understood every sentence, took in every word, and laughed at every joke, and not for the sake of laughing along to fit in, but because he got the joke. When we finished the musical I turned to Alex and asked him if he liked it. He replied with three words: “I loved it.” Finally, Alex had completed his puzzle with ease.
Joe Mussomeli is a 10th-grade student who lives in Westport, CT. His younger brother, Alex, has been featured in Hearing Health magazine and is a participant in HHF’s “Faces of Hearing Loss” campaign.