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January 28th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
I usually visually interrupt the speaker and say “I’m sorry, I should have mentioned. I’m hard of hearing and have to lipread to fully understand what is being said. If you could speak a little slower and a little louder, and make sure you’re facing me when you talk that would be wonderful. Thank you so much.” Or, if you’re in a business situation, I’ve found it beneficial to start out the conversation by just saying “Just so you know, I lipread. So if you could speak a little slower and a little louder and make sure that I can see your lips, that would be great.”
It’s a bit awkward feeling, but seems to do the trick. Some people are going to be cool with it, and some people are going to be awkward about it no matter how the concept introduced to them. The trick seems to be to make sure that they’re aware of it, but in such a relaxed manner that it’s more along the lines of “the sky is blue” and less along the lines of “quick, heimlich maneuver! I’m choking!” They’re gonna be nervous as it is, there’s very little that we can do to defuse it other than being very calm and matter-of-fact. (Something I took a long time to master, as I’m usually nervous.)
January 28th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Great post, Katie – I mean I’ve been in exactly the same situation and had exactly the same kind of explaining to do. I’ve been very bad at it ever since I started to go deaf, and to be honest I’m only a little bit better at it now. There are *still* occasions when I can’t bring myself to do the sensible thing and just say “I need to see your face as I’m hard of hearing”. It shouldn’t be a big deal, and on some occasions it isn’t, but there are times when it just feels like the hardest thing to say - mostly because of the truly awful thought that people might feel *sorry* for me (something that makes me shudder) - but you know those pitying looks. Argh! However, I am getting slightly better at all this stuff, in that I do sometimes actually ask in a sensible way. But I still need to work on doing that more often. I often hope they’ll see the hearing aids and let intelligence do the rest, but it’s never that simple
January 28th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
Nigel- if you avert your eyes slightly when you say it, you miss the pitying look.
It may still happen but sometimes ignorance is bliss.
January 28th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
Good point
– I’m getting slightly better at it…but far too slowly.
January 28th, 2006 at 6:16 pm
Hiya Katie.
I had a similar thing as a child with my mum doing a lot of the advocacy for me at school. At university I started having to advocate for myself both in the formal academic side of things and socially.
I believe at first a lot of people thought I was weird, perhaps the right word would be intense. My good friend H tells me that when she first met me she was quite intimidated by me because I watched people very carefully. She didn’t know I was deaf, just that I was loud and seemed every confident.
In reality I was probably just being my usual gobby self. I tend to get loud when I don’t concentrate on my volume, or I can’t hear myself properly. My girlfriend says I am loud to the point of rudeness and that when we are out and about people DO stare. I don’t sound deaf so I think people think I’m just a bit obnoxious, or intense.
It took a while for people at university to get used to me. I did find it very hard for my first year, or even two. My housemates were mostly people I knew before I went to uni, I didn’t stay in student halls because they were expensive compared to cheap rent.
Getting a mobile phone really helped my social life. It gave people a textual way of communicating with me. People could SMS (text message) me all the rumours and gossip especially if it involved them. Before then people would try and whisper stuff to me, which completely failed. Giving out my mobile number gave me more opportunities to mention deafness as I can’t use it for voice at all. People were surprisingly good about not phoning my phone by voice.
I often upset people cos I’d ask A how B was, not knowing A and B had had a big fight the night before or something . I don’t think people realised I didn’t just know - they thought I was being obnoxious. I didn’t pick stuff up by osmosis like hearing people seem to do (Sara has made this point in an earlier post).
With people I don’t know I tend to say something like “I am completely deaf on the left side and I have a hearing aid on the right”. I explain that I need to see someone’s face, especially the mouth for lipreading. I personally can lipread side on, and some people can be easier at slightly side on rather than straight ahead. I will also be pushy about seating, selecting the most optimal seat and asking very cheekily almost “Can I have this seat? It’s best for my hearing you see!”. People almost never refuse and it is yet another reminder.
If I don’t hear what someone says, I say “Say again?” rather than “What” or “Pardon?”. “Pardon?” gets all sorts of bad jokes about “what did you do [fart/burp/etc]” and I got sick of people embarrassing me and making me cringe. “What?” can be confusing, ambigious or most commonly rude in people’s perceptions.
I hate hate hate it when people will not repeat what they said. I’m pretty dogged on this one. I will not usually let it drop because it’s an attitude as much as a one off, and it then becomes easy for that person not to make other efforts towards the communication. If I have to I will point out that to not repeat something is rude to anyone, and extra rude to a deaf person. Communication is a two way street!
Oh and as I think about it another useful tip/trick/tool is the preamble. I often don’t realise people are talking to me, and if I do realise, I’ve lost the context giving or the early part of the conversation. I usually instruct people to make sure they have my attention before speaking - either by calling my name and waiting for a response, or tapping me lightly on the side of the upper arm. It is important to wait for a response, and if one method doesn’t work, try another.
In a meeting situation it is perfectly reasonable to speak to whoever is chairing the meeting to say “I am deaf, can you name people before they can speak?”. This shouldn’t be a special circumstance, it should be standard meeting behaviour. It is the Chair’s responsibility to ensure that the meeting is carried out in an orderly manner.
I am apparently very open about my deafness. I can’t not be, because I don’t make sense if I don’t. People will assume I am hearing because my speech is good. It is VERY difficult to get people to understand that my speech is no indicator for the quality or ability to hear and furthermore parse/make sense of what I hear. That’s not to say I always speak up, sometimes I know I am too tired to parse anyone/thing so I will just phase out. I don’t think it is worth making the others make the effort if I know I can’t utilise that. I’d rather be honest and say “I’m shattered, I can’t parse speech properly anymore, call it a day”.
If someone is completely impossible to hear I find it best to be honest about this and tell them what the problem is. Sometimes it is things out of their control like an accent or pitch of voice, other times it may be things they can work on like facial expression, lipreading pattern or speed/volume of speech. If there is nothing they can do I try not to hold it against them, and find some alternative communication method/medium.
Finally what I think all HOH/deaf people need to be aware of, and should bear in mind is that many hearing people feel incredibly guilty about their inability to be heard. Unfortunately this often manifests as lack of awareness, disinterest and sometimes actual hostility. As much as it isn’t fair that we the deaf one should do ALL the legwork, if we want things to work out we will have to. People need to be able to acknowledge that guilt to work through it, and begin the gradual process of dispelling it. We’d much rather have someone who is hard to hear who makes the effort, than be ignored because of unhelpful guilt.
January 28th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
Wow. What Natalya just said had me nodding a lot. I had some thoughts/things to add while reading through it but didn’t stop reading to jot ‘em down. I’ll have to go back through it in a little bit and see if I can remember what I wanted to say.
January 28th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Natalya, great answer. I admire your confidence and matter-of-fact attitude about confronting one’s needs head on. It really is better to speak up rather than giving into the desire to just blend in or bury your head in the sand.
It’s true that in the long run, people will be more at ease if they know you’ll say something if they’re doing something wrong. Hell, they might even be able to joke around with you about it. I know that when I put it off, I end up doing what Sara said NOT to do: I use the quick!-heimlich-maneuver! tone of voice.
Ah yes… the ambiguity of saying “WHAT?”
Growing up, I said this, and it drove my mom absolutely crazy. Sara, Adam (et al): do people in the states associate “pardon” with crude noises? Now I’m freaked out ’cause that’s what I say when I don’t hear something! In any case I’ll remember to use one of the other options the next time I’m in the UK. 
Nigel. You know, that’s *exactly* what I do 9 times out of 10. I meet someone and cross my fingers that they’ll notice the aids in my ears or my speech will have enough of an accent that they put two and two together. For a girl who’s usually too lazy to put her hair up: WISHFUL THINKING.
January 28th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
Katie,
I’m not always as good as I describe… Sometimes I forget, or as you say just can’t be bothered. Confident assertiveness does work, but it is tiring, especially if you meet lots of strangers.
In my job as a librarian last year I was working in one of the suburbs of Sheffield, UK where the locals (lerkals) have quite a strong accent. Often we’d get old men coming in who were so deep-voiced I couldn’t parse them at all. Sometimes they would be deaf so unable to hear me either! This made for amusing handwaving and pointing until one of the staff who would know the man in question would rescue me!
I couldn’t possibly explain my deafness to everyone who came in. I went for the explaining only once communication was becoming difficult. It wasn’t often a big problem, but what I did find was that 10 hours of customer facing work a week really drained me. I could cope with my colleagues who I would be able to get a pattern on and learn - but new people were HARD.
I’m just glad that I didn’t even contemplate agreeing to use a telephone for voice. I will also not consider working more than 15 hours a week with customers who expect me to be able to hear them. It’s just too knackering.
Ideally I’d like to go into academia and do some research. This is where Nigel tells me I am insane. I could probably do some teaching but I’d have to control Q&A sessions so that hearing wasn’t a problem. I just have to get myself some research experience and qualifications under my belt.
Where are you based and what do you do or want to do? I’m unemployed and on the sick due to balance problems and waiting for rehab treatment. I did a degree in information management and was looking for work, without much success before I became ill. Once I am less ill I’m going to go back to university and get into academia. There isn’t much work for deaf information management people who don’t like management or looking smart in scary business clothing.
January 28th, 2006 at 8:36 pm
I graduated a couple years ago, and am currently based in Boston- coincidentally working for an academic library. When I started my job, I was trained to work at the reference desk which was as exhausting as you described (before that, I worked in a bookstore, which was worse). Fortunately, my department changed hands, and I was routed to the internet-based reference desk, which has been a great fit.
Last week, I hired two students to help out our department- their reactions to my hearing loss is what got me wondering about the “dude, I’m deaf” etiquette.
The library has been a good experience, but I know it’s not what I want to do for a career. Scary business clothing aside, I’m mulling over paralegal work for my next move… I’d *love* to find a career in research (my background is in Art History). I need more experience whatever I choose to do. Ah well, we’ll see what happens.
January 28th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
Art history! Yay. Even though my speciality is in music (oh, the irony), art history fascinates me, especially French art from about 1871 until the 1950s. My mind was blown the other day while I was in the US with a visit to the Barnes Foundation
And I guess since I write about the music of that period a lot, I’ve got to be very interested in the art history of the period as well.
So what area(s) did you specialise in, if you don’t mind me asking?
January 28th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Katie,
Your work experience sounds very cool. I tried to get work in Sheffield University’s libraries and I never heard back from them. I enjoyed the work but was treated as if I was 16 and had no qualifications. My contract ended up only being for 3 months due to red tape (some of it waiting for occupational health stuff) and they refused to extend it. I think I surprised my colleagues by not only being vaguely quick and efficient, but also using my brain and reading all the computer manuals. I also scared them by crashing their systems - best way to learn if you ask me!
I wish we’d had an Internet reference desk - I applied for a number of jobs where that would be my main duty. Unfortunately Sheffield’s public library system has this obsession with ‘fairness’. So everyone has to do every single ‘task’ within the jobs even if some tasks are preferred by some people, or blatantly unsuitable for others. In many cases I think they didn’t give me the job because I couldn’t do the phones bit and it wouldn’t be ‘fair’ on others if I did extra other stuff instead. Of course this would be illegal under the DDA, but I’d have to prove it conclusively. ;(
Paralegal stuff sounds very cool. My younger sister is doing a law degree and I’ve been roped into helping with a lot of her work. I find the information seeking very easy and I’m considering doing some legal courses with the Open university for fun….
January 28th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
As it happens, my college art department didn’t believe in survey courses- or specialization. My thesis was focused on Mary Cassatt, but my favorite thing to study is Japonisme and similar forms of cultural appropriation (i.e. Picasso’s use of African Masks, the effect of colonialism on “native” cultures).
My mind was likewise blown away when I visited the Tate Modern for the first time last summer. That place is HUGE!
January 28th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
Mary Cassatt is very interesting – I don’t need to tell you that there are lots and lots of her paintings in the Philadelphia Art Museum – another place I love to visit when I’m in the US
And yes, Tate Modern is amazing.
January 29th, 2006 at 11:47 am
I laughed out loud recently as I sucessfully made someone feel terrible in college!! she was talking away to me, and she was someone new to me so it took a while to understand her tones and lips, and when i didnt answer she giggled and said jokingly , Hey you deaf or something???!!! and I said, ‘well actually…..!!’ and told her the story!! the poor girl felt terrible but we laughed it off afterwards!!
as for teling people, I dont have any particularly planned way of telling people, but with tutors in colloge, I just let them know before hand and get my notes sorted b4 class starts and sit up front to lipread properly,then those tutors let the other ones know and thats ok
with new friends, it usually just falls into conversation, and once I tell them my story seems well rehearsed as I do repeat it quiet a bit!