Hearing Loss Help  

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

The father of a hard of hearing child asked:

Does your kid (or did you, as a kid) ever get depressed about hearing loss?

Our eleven year old son has worn hearing aids since age three. When he started, we successfully made it a happy condition, as he ran to show everyone the cool colored ear molds on his “electric ears,” etc. No problem from his point of view.

As is normal for eleven-year-olds, he is now more acutely aware of every slight difference between himself and the “norm”, and especially between himself and the “cool guys.”

He usually deals with all this reasonably well, but when his defenses are down, as when he’s tired, the impact of his hearing loss, the fact that the teachers wear the FM just for him, the fact that he has to wear hearing aids and might someday lose the rest of his hearing, just hits him hard. At those times, he is a very sad boy. The duration of these bouts can sometimes be measured in minutes—other times, hours, but they never persist to a pathological extent. Nevertheless, they’re painful for him and for us when they occur.

We understand that grieving for his lost hearing is normal and healthy, but that does nothing to diminish our desire to help him feel better.

Aside from the obvious prescriptions of active listening and hugs, are there any pearls of wisdom about ways to make people who are sad about their hearing loss feel better?

It’s totally understandable that your son feels down and depressed at times. These episodes are likely more painful to you as the parents, than to him. I understand your desire to help the pain go away. However, you don’t want to take the pain away (well you do—but you shouldn’t) because that is part of the grieving process. He needs to feel his grief, deal with it, and let it go. If you shield him from it (or give him drugs to suppress these feelings) all you are really doing is delaying the grieving process (and causing him other problems in the meantime).

Therefore, the right thing to do is help him through the grieving process. How do you do that, you ask?

One thing you need to do is acknowledge that having a hearing loss is a real pain—it’s not easy living with a hearing loss. I know. I was born with a severe hearing loss and had to deal with it too. Don’t make light of his hearing problems and the pain he feels—but at the same time, explain to him that grieving is a process and that he is working through this grieving process. Assure him that this process has an end—it won’t go on forever, and he won’t always feel this way. This will give him hope.

You can even identify which of the stages of grief he is in so he can see that he is actually making progress through the grieving process. When he is down, he needs to know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel—and that it is getting closer all the time, whether he can see it or not. Imagine that he is in a dark tunnel, and that the tunnel has a big bend in it so he can’t see the light at the end until he gets around the bend of depression that is in the middle of the tunnel. You can be his light until he gets around the bend and can see it for himself.

My short book, “Grieving for Your Hearing Loss—the Rocky Road from Denial to Acceptance” has helped many. It can help both you and him successfully navigate this grieving process.

Another thing you can do to help him is to find him some successful hard of hearing role models so he knows that hearing loss isn’t a lifetime sentence to mediocrity and low-paying jobs; that it is possible to be successful in spite of his hearing loss. He can learn from, and emulate, these successful role models and be successful himself.

Also, he needs his own support “group” that he can turn to apart from you—his parents. These can be other hard of hearing people that have already been down the road before him and can show him the way, and other hard of hearing peers. Often parents aren’t the best ones for this role because they are also grieving for their child’s hearing loss and so aren’t emotionally “all there” to help their child.

In summary, acknowledge to him that the pain/depression/grief he feels is real, but it will pass. Encourage him to be the best hard of hearing person he can be. Assure him that although hearing loss may change his life in some ways, his life need not be any less rewarding or fulfilling because of his hearing loss, it may just be a bit different. That has been my experience. It can be his too.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A new study by the University of East Anglia has revealed the surprising results that computers are now better at lip-reading (speechreading) than humans are. In one demonstration. the computers recognized 80% of the words presented, whereas the 19 human speechreaders only recognized 32% of the words. (1) That is a remarkably significant difference.

Even more surprising is the fact that with just four hours of training, the computers helped the human speechreaders markedly improve their lip-reading skills. This new research opens the way for teaching hard of hearing people improved speechreading skills that will improve their accuracy dramatically.

Looking into the future, I can foresee the day when a hard of hearing or deaf person, using a video camera attached to their laptop will be able to talk with a hearing person via their laptop. The laptop will speechread the person and print what they say on the screen with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Unlike speech recognition software, which listens to the person speaking and converts their speech to text, this speechreading software converts facial (mouth) movements to text. Thus, it works just as well in noisy places as in quiet situations, whereas the speech to text software requires relatively quiet situations so that it can hear human speech over the noise.

(1) University of East Anglia (2009, September 13). Findings Could Lead To Improved Lip-reading Training For The Deaf And Hard-of-hearing. ScienceDaily.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

In the USA in 2006, there were 412,500 home fires that killed 2,580 people and injured another 12,925 people. That’s scary! On the average, these same fires killed one person with hearing loss every 15 hours, and injured a person with hearing loss every 3 hours. That’s really scary if you are one of the 70 million Americans with hearing loss!

You don’t have to become one of those statistics. Although having a hearing loss puts you at a decided disadvantage when using standard alerting devices to warn you of fires, you can put the odds decidedly in your favor if you follow these four basic steps…

Thus begins my latest article “Fire Safety for People with Hearing Loss“. Click this link to read the rest of this article.

This article explains a number of practical coping strategies for preventing fires from happening in your home and discusses wonderful new alerting systems to quickly get your attention—even if you have a hearing loss—if a fire should happen to break out.

Also, here’s a link to learn about the wonderful new Lifetone HL Bedside Fire Alarm & Clock which includes the link for purchasing your own Lifetone Fire Alarms.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady wrote:

I know a stereo plug has two rings, and a mono plug only one. That is easy to see, but, how do you know whether the device you are plugging into has a stereo or mono jack?

One manufacturer of assistive devices says in their instructions, “do not plug a stereo plug into this device, because it will damage the product” (or something like that). Not all devices come with adequate instructions (and in some cases, no instructions). Also, some instructions that are translated from another language into English can leave you scratching your head as to what they mean.

As you know, you can’t tell just by looking at a jack whether it is made for a mono or stereo plug. The easy way to tell is, if ear buds (for example) come with it, I check the plug on them, and if it is a mono plug, then the jack will almost certainly be mono as well. The same for stereo plugs and jacks.

Since you can’t tell by looking, and its easy to forget later whether the jack was mono or stereo, what I do with my assistive devices, adapters and ear buds/neckloops is put a color-coded dab of nail polish by each male plug and female jack—a blue dab means it is mono and a pink dab means it is stereo.

This way you always know which is which. When using any assistive devices and adapters, it is very simple—you plug blue to blue and pink to pink.

So when I use my PockeTalker (mono) with my stereo ear buds (which I much prefer to the ear buds that come with the PockeTalker), I have to use a stereo to mono adapter. I have a blue dab beside the PockeTalker jack and a blue dab at the male adapter plug. I have a pink dab at the female (stereo) end of the adapter, and pink a pink dab on the stereo ear bud plug. When plugging all this together, all I have to remember is “blue to blue and pink to pink” and I never have to wonder whether I’ve hooked it up correctly or not.

This is a great idea to use with elderly people and people that are not “electrically” inclined. Put all the appropriate colored dabs on the jacks and plugs of their assistive devices, and then just tell them always to match colors and they won’t have problems.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A new teacher with a profound hearing loss wrote:

I am a hearing impaired student teacher. I have a profound hearing loss with a speech recognition of 12 percent. I was wondering if you could assist me with some strategies for teaching normal hearing students in a Middle School environment. I would need procedural and instructional strategies that work. Can you assist me with this, as I do not know of any hearing impaired educators locally.

Since your discrimination is so poor, my first suggestion is to consider getting cochlear implants.

As for coping strategies there are many. In truth, many of the coping strategies you used as a student are the same ones you need to use as a teacher. After all, hearing loss is hearing loss.

For example, continue to use your speechreading skills that I’m sure you have used all your life. If you want to improve your speechreading skills, may I suggest the Seeing and Hearing Speech CD program. You can get it at http://www.hearinglosshelp.com/products/seeinghearingspeech.htm.

I assume that you know many of the tricks to help you hear better such as get close, have the light on the speaker’s face, cut out background noise, etc. My short book, “Talking with Hard of Hearing People, Here’s How to Do It Right!” gives a lot of help in this respect..

Do you use any assistive devices? I think you’ll find the super-directional microphone plugged into a PockeTalker, will help you hear your student’s better. In actual fact, this microphone was originally designed for a hard of hearing teacher. I find it most useful. To use the PockeTalker with your hearing aids, plug in a neckloop instead of ear buds.

To learn more, read the article I wrote called “Hearing in the Classroom: An Assistive Device for Hard of Hearing Teachers“, and another article along the same line called “Hearing in the Classroom or in Other Noisy Places“.

If you have trouble hearing your student’s replies, then I’d tend more to written answers, rather than verbal ones.

If you can’t hear a student there are a number of strategies you can employ, such as:

1. Arrange your classroom so the soft-spoken students all sit near the front of the room so they are closer to you. That way you can hear them better.

2. Walk down the aisle so you are closer to the student you are trying to hear. That way you can hear him/her better and speechread better too. Combined with the Super-directional mic/PockeTalker combination, this can really work well.

3. Have a student who you can hear well sit at the front of the room and “interpret” what someone said that you just can’tget. At times I do this when speaking to groups. I ask someone that I know I can hear/understand to repeat what someone just said. Don’t do this too much as you are imposing on the goodwill of the person doing the “interpreting”. It is better to learn to cope on your own, rather than “using” other people as much as possible.

4. Pass a wireless FM microphone around and anyone who wants to speak, talks into the microphone. You wear the FM receiver and pipe their voices directly into your ears via a neckloop and the t-coils in your hearing aids.

5. Have a student you can’t hear/understand come up and write key words on the blackboard.

6. Teach your students how to fingerspell so they can fingerspell any key words you miss.

7. Give out a sheet at the beginning of each year that explains your hearing loss and what you need the students to do. One hard of hearing teacher did just that. You can read this sheet in my article, “Coping Strategies for Hard of Hearing Teachers“.

So there are 7 things you can do to help yourself successfully live with your hearing loss in the classroom. They may “prime the pump” and now you’ll think of other things you can also do in addition to using all the assistive devices mentioned above.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

My friend Michele has a hearing loss. She explained:

I was in Home Depot yesterday morning. While waiting for the nice man who offered to cut a threaded rod for me, I was standing near the entrance of the tool rental area. Evidently there is a motion sensor that triggers a bell to let the tool rental employees know they have a customer.

I kept seeing the gentleman that worked there coming and going from the back room, but figured he was just busy with his work.

Finally, he came over and asked me to move from where I was standing, that it was me setting off the bell. Clearly he was a little perturbed that I was so dense as to not realize I was the cause of the bell going off repeatedly.

Long ago I might have apologized and felt bad that I had irritated the employee, and given him the benefit of the doubt for not knowing I can’t hear, but I’m over it.

As the employee turned, without waiting for a reply from me, I said (in a very nice tone), “I’m deaf, I can’t hear the bell.”

The man turned, and from the look on his face I expected him to dissolve into a puddle at my feet. He offered a sincere apology.

I gave him his moment of humiliation, then very nicely assured him that it was okay—just as I did not know I was triggering the bell, he did not know I was deaf.

I didn’t take any pleasure in this mans’ humiliation, but by allowing him to experience it, he, hopefully, learned to think a little further than “Boy, is she stupid not to know she is the reason that d*** bell keeps going off!

This is a right way of teaching people about your hearing loss—and an excellent way of successfully resolving sticky hard of hearing situations.

Thanks for the lesson Michele. Also, thanks for letting me know there are bells hooked up to motion sensors. It never crossed my mind that they did such things in stores. In my experience, you have to physically “ring the bell” when you want service—not just stand there.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man asked:

Is there anywhere on the web, or a resource that you could direct me to, where I can learn to improve my lip reading skills?

The real secret to becoming better at speechreading (lip reading is the older term) is to always “stare” at the person to whom you are talking. In other words, practice, practice, practice. I’ve been doing this all my life. That’s how I
learned.

You may find it helpful to read my article on speechreading. However, if you want to really speed things up, there is an excellent speechreading CD available to help you improve your speechreading skills.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady explained:

If someone has an automatic t-coil on their hearing aid, they will have problems hearing on their cell phones if they want to do so in t-coil mode. They will need a magnet glued to the phone’s earpiece in order to activate the automatic t-coil.

I don’t have a t-coil switch on my digital hearing aid. As a result, for a year, trying to hear on my cell phone was horrible. I couldn’t put a magnet next to the earpiece to kick in the t-coil because it was a flip-phone and it wouldn’t close otherwise.

I just brought a new cell phone—not a flip phone this time. I glued a magnet next to the earpiece and the t-coil kicked in properly. I can hear great now!

You have just exposed one of my chief complaints concerning automatic t-coils—they need a manual override when using them with devices that do not provide a strong enough magnetic field to activate them. This includes devices such as cell phones, neckloops and room loops.

It’s a shame that after paying the big bucks for your hearing aid, you still have to fool around to make the automatic t-coil work with your cell phone. Your work around is great—you just have to find a small magnet that’s powerful enough to activate your automatic t-coils and then glue it to the right place on your phone so it will activate when you hold the phone up to your ear (hearing aid). That’s a pain.

I don’t like, or recommend, automatic t-coils unless they have a manual override. With a manual override, you don’t have to fool around with a magnet. You just manually put your hearing aids into t-coil mode. Then they will work with your cell phones and neckloops and room loops too.

With your automatic t-coils, you can’t hear via your t-coils when using loop systems unless you stick magnets to your hearing aids to activate their automatic t-coils. That’s another pain. (Also, you need to have those magnets with you at all times so you have them when you need them.) Furthermore, you can’t glue the magnets to your hearing aids because you have to remove the magnets when you are finished with the looped device so your hearing aids will return to microphone mode again. Otherwise, you won’t hear a thing until you do. What a pain!

It’s so much better to insist on a manual t-coil, or an automatic t-coil with a manual override. Then you never have to fool around with magnets on your phone or your hearing aids. As you can tell, I’m solidly for “pain-free” listening.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

If you have a severe hearing loss, hearing your name being called in a busy doctor’s office is stressful to say the least, and can be an exercise in futility when you keep being “missed” because you never heard your name called.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way. Even when the doctor’s office isn’t set up to be “hearing friendly”, you can do things to make yourself stand out and thus get your needs met. Here’s what Mary did.

Mary was having cataract surgery in a large, busy outpatient clinic. She was having the pre-op, surgery and post-op all the same day so was going to be “called” a number of times throughout the day. She had tried some strategies before, but this time she hit the jackpot in discovering something that really worked.

Before she went to the clinic she got a bright yellow sheet of paper and printed on it in big bold letters:

PATIENT IS HARD OF HEARING

MAY NOT HEAR NAME CALLED

WEARING YELLOW TOP TODAY

Then she color-coordinated her “top” with the paper color.

When she checked in, she gave the paper to the receptionist and had her clip it to the outside front of her chart. Here’s what happened. Mary wrote:

It was a huge success! I was able to see the sheet on the outside of the chart several times so I got up before they even called my name. (Note: You need to do your part too and be proactive—watch for someone coming with your “yellow” chart.)

I had 2 people come directly to me, and one lady just had the yellow sheet in her hand when she was coming my way. (Wearing the yellow top really helped them find me.) One time I saw my yellow chart in the box outside one of the offices so I knew that was my chart when they pulled it.

When Mary went back for follow-up a week or so later she did the same thing—took her yellow card and wore a yellow top. She explains:

I saw the yellow sheet as the first technician called my name, so stood up. She laughed. The same thing happened when the second person called my name. However, when the third girl called out into the large waiting area, she was behind me. It didn’t seem that she was looking for a yellow shirt. She seemed to be looking over the heads of people, but I turned around and said, “Did you just call Mary?” and then I saw the yellow sheet so I knew she really was calling me. She commented on what a great idea that was. Everyone remembered to clip the yellow sheet back on top of my chart, ready for the next person. This has been a successful and positive experience in advocating for my hearing needs.

Thanks for the tip Mary!

Next time you are in a similar situation, adapt Mary’s strategy to fit your needs. It worked for her. It should work for you too!

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady explained:

When my husband and I are in the car and my daughter is in the back seat, I cannot make out what she is saying. I have lost most of my hearing in the conversational range and also in the high frequencies. Do you have any suggestions how I can hear her better with my hearing aid when she is in the back seat. When it is just my husband and me, I can look right at him (if he is driving) and do pretty well hearing him.

What I do—and it works great for me with my severe hearing loss—is use a PockeTalker and a lapel microphone.

I just clip the lapel microphone on my wife and hear her wonderfully well. (I typically put the PockeTalker in the cup holder between us.)

If a person is sitting in the back seat, such as your daughter, just clip the lapel microphone to her and listen via the PockeTalker. If you want to hear 2 people at once (e.g. your husband and your daughter), all you need is a “Y” adapter (available at any Radio Shack store) and two lapel microphones.

To listen to the PockeTalker, you have two options—either use “bare ears” and wear ear buds plugged into the PockeTalker—which is what I normally do—or switch your hearing aids to t-coil mode and use a neckloop instead of ear buds.

If you need a longer cord for the microphone, not a problem. The PockeTalker comes with a 12 foot extension cord that you can use for that purpose.