Understanding / Hearing

Helen Keller was asked if she could have her sight or her hearing, which would she want. She said, "My hearing, because when you lose your sight, you lose things. When you lose your hearing, you lose people."

Those of us with hearing loss lose many nuances and subtlety of human communication. We miss visual nuances because we focus on a speaker's lips, not their face. We miss audible nuances because a portion of the incoming sound muted or distorted. For example, we frequently "don't get the joke". When telling a joke, people frequently lower their voice at the punchline, leaving people with hearing loss "in the dark". Imagine what it feels like (emotionally) to be in a room with people who are all laughing at a joke you can't hear. Where do you find your own joy in this situation? How can your joy be part of the collective joy when you can't join in / share it?

The muses often escape us, too. The enjoyment of live theatre and music performances is diminished when we can't understand the actors or hear certain sounds. I'm sure subliminal tapes fall into the category of "missed connections" as well. I believe some students have "shunned" me because of my hearing loss. One young chemistry student said she didn't want to be my lab partner because she mumbled.

In accordance with federal and state law, it is the policy of The Evergreen State College that..."no otherwise qualified person with a disability shall, solely on the basis of that disability, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination by any College program or activity."

Meredith Inocencio, of the Access Services department, explained that she arranges accommodations for several hundred students. Most are developmentally disabled, and only a handful have hearing loss. She's responsible for ascertaining a student's need and making the necessary arrangements for their accommodation. With her authorization, a student can borrow equipment from the Media Loan department for a whole quarter at a time.

Hearing and understanding are not only important for academic reasons, but safety reasons as well. This becomes very clear when you're driving down the highway and see a roadside alert telling you to tune your radio to 1650 to listen to an advisory. If you're Deaf or hard of hearing, you can't understand the advisory. Sometimes my car makes noises I don't hear. I was about to drive away when someone stopped me to tell me it sounded like something was wrong with my engine. I can't hear smoke alarms at all, even with my hearing aids.

"Excuse me." I needed to get his attention as he was writing on the chalkboard, talking with his back to the audience. He turned to face me. "I wear have a hearing loss and need to read your lips." He nodded and went on.

Human speech consists of 18 "places of articulation" – organs and parts of anatomy (larynx, glottis, vocal cords, throat, tongue, teeth and lips) and their positioning and movement to make noise. Humans can make several hundred distinct, unique sounds; most languages only use about 40 distinct sounds. Several languages in southern Africa even use clicks.

Vowels carry the sounds, consonants stop sounds. Some consonants – sonorants – are similar to vowels. "I uh oo uh O" with consonants becomes "I come to the store". Some people with hearing loss can hear vowels, but have difficulty hearing consonants. Since many consonants are sounded by moving lips, teeth and tongue, it can be helpful for the hard-of-hearing to "read lips", or "speech read". Therefore, it's important for a speaker to make eye contact with the audience, ensure their facial hair doesn't obscure their lips from view, and keep the room well lit for visibility.

An audiogram is a chart showing the results of a series of tests which can be performed to illustrate a person's ability to hear. The test is given in a soundproof room where the client can't see the mouth of the tester. One of the tests gives the client the opportunity to indicate when they hear a sound. Sounds are broadcast to the client in different frequencies (Hertz), and at different volumes (decibels). Another test is word recognition. A series of words are spoken and the client repeats the word.

Vowels and consonants are spoken with frequencies in Hertz. Vowels are lower frequencies and consonants are higher frequencies. Therefore, people with hearing loss in the higher frequencies may have more difficulty hearing and understanding consonants. The ability to distinguish consonants without reading lips hampers the client's ability to recognize words.

Sometimes people think you're hearing selectively because on certain occasions you seem to hear quite well. What they don't realize is that understanding / hearing depends on many factors. Some vocalized subject material might have a lot of words which are familiar and easy to lip / speech read. Other material might have a lot of words which are not lip readable. In certain environments I can hear many sounds, but my brain is unable to process {the sounds} so I can understand human speech. "Sound" does not equate with human speech.

"Could you please speak slower? Even with my hearing aids, you're talking too fast for me to understand what you're saying."

There are dozens of hearing aid manufacturers, and many more kinds of hearing aids. Some hearing aids are analog and some are digital. We hear acoustically, where sound is comprised of analog "continuous" sound waves. Digital hearing aids convert the analog sounds to digital sounds so the microprocessor can amplify the desired sounds. Some hearing aids are programmable. They have settings which can be changed to the specific needs of the client. There are also different sizes of hearing aids. Some are so small they fit in the ear canal. Others are larger and fit behind the ear, with an ear mold in the ear and a plastic tube which connects the ear mold to the hearing aid. Some people benefit more from behind-the-ear hearing aids; however, because of our culture's fixation on beauty over practicality and correlation of hearing loss to aging, they choose in-the-ear hearing aids so people won't see them.

Hearing aids are very expensive, some much more than others. In Washington State hearing aids are not covered by health insurance. Also, insurance companies won't cover loss of hearing aids. Generally people who wear hearing aids are older and tend to have memory loss, forgetting where they left their hearing aids. As a result, the insurance companies wouldn't make money on the policies.

There are also myriad assistive listening devices (ALDs). Some ALDs work with hearing aids, and some don't require a hearing aid. An example of the latter is an amplifier which can be placed near or connected to a television set, enabling the viewer to amplify the sound. Some hearing aid manufacturers also produce ALDs which work with their hearing aids. These devices can be used to amplify sound in certain settings. Some ALDs consist of a simple amplifier and an omnidirectional microphone, and are used in conjunction with a magnetic telecoil cord worn around the neck. Others are more sophisticated and rely on FM signals. They require an FM transmitter and a receiver. The microphone might be a unidirectional device worn on the speaker's lapel. A different microphone might be omnidirectional and pick up sounds from the whole room. Many movie theatres now have FM transmission systems and offer movie-goers headsets which receive the transmitted sound.

I'm getting frustrated. "You're still talking too fast for me to understand you." Oh, he's ‘one of those' – people who can't seem to change their speech patterns. "Can you please slow down?" Geez, he's a faculty member at Evergreen which is committed to accommodating students with disabilities. Hasn't anyone coached him? Does he care?

There are a number of laws which mandate the accommodation of people with disabilities – notably the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) under the United States Department of Justice. I was surprised to learn the ADA was under the Department of Justice until my local librarian pointed out the ADA is related to the Civil Rights Act. It's against the law to discriminate against people with disabilities.

Over the years, the reach of the ADA has spread from federal agencies to state agencies, educational institutions, and even into the private sector. One of the provisions of ADA states that a person with disability has a right to the "most effective communication", whatever that takes. This means that a college must provide the most effective communication to accommodate the needs of students with disabilities.

Some of the services available to the Deaf and hard of hearing include real-time captioning, equipment loans (like ALDs), signers (like American Sign Language) and notetakers. The Access Services for Students with Disabilities department at The Evergreen State College offers all these services and more. From their web page:

"We have a student with a hearing loss. She has a device which helps her hear better. Would you pass this microphone around and introduce yourself?" I felt like I had "died and gone to heaven".

There is a variety of things a speaker can do to help ensure the hard-of-hearing audience can both hear and understand. They range from selecting the hearing environment to controlling speech patterns and personal actions. For example, select rooms with good acoustics. Cement or plaster walls, high ceilings, and wooden or tiled floors make sounds reverberate, creating excessive ambient noise. Close windows and doors if there's a lot of noise outside the room. Make sure there's adequate lighting on your face for people to read your lips.

Make sure you have everyone's attention before you begin speaking. Face the audience when you speak. Don't hide your mouth, chew food, gum or smoke while talking. Speak for a few moments, and ask the audience if they can hear you. If someone can't hear you, ask how you can accommodate them. Do they need to move closer to the podium? Can some of the other things, like lighting, ambient noise, be adjusted to facilitate hearing?

Speak clearly, at a moderate pace. Use facial expressions, gestures. Give clues when changing the subject. Repeat or paraphrase comments from participants who might not be able to hear. Ask everyone in the audience to be sure their comments are spoken with volume.

None of these things requires expensive technology or extraordinary effort. It just takes someone who cares.