a more silent world

Guest Blog - Children and Hearing Loss-Changing Lives by Raising Awareness

2013-05-02T20:01:00.004-04:00

This is my first guest post, by fellow blogger John O'Connor - bloggingwjohno.blogspot.com

Perfect hearing is something that the average person really takes for granted. When people think of hearing loss, they often associate the condition with people who are old in age. Hearing loss is common in babies and young children. A person can be born deaf of suffer hearing loss gradually over time. Of the estimated 738,000 people in the U.S. who have experienced substantial hearing loss, 8 percent of those people fall under the age of 18. People should understand that hearing loss is something that affects people from all backgrounds of all ages. Many people, especially children, are at risk for hearing loss.

It is estimated that 15 percent of children between the ages of 6-19 years old have experienced low or high frequency hearing at the 16th decibel in one or both ears. Children who may be hard of hearing may find it hard to grasp certain concepts like word order or may have a hard time learning grammar in school. Depending on the severity of the hearing impairment, the person has one of two options available to them to navigate these challenges. Children may have to wear a hearing aid, which amplifies the sound and redirects it into the user's ear. Others may learn sign language. Individuals who are deaf or have suffered hearing loss will have to learn sign language as a means to communicate with others.

Children must be assured that they will be able to have a wonderful, fulfilling life with a hearing impairment. Although children will have to grapple with bullying and may struggle with communications, many go on to excel in different areas of their lives. Pete Townshend was a rock musician who enjoyed a stellar career as a guitarist and songwriter for The Who. Although being hearing impaired, he enjoyed 40 years in the entertainment field. Townshend has tinnitus and is partially deaf. He credits his hearing loss to a noisy environment where he was consistently exposed to loud music. Actress Marlee Matlin has lost 80 percent of her hearing in her left ear. Since a toddler, she has struggled with hearing loss. Her strong support system helped her adapt to her condition and excel in acting. The actress went on to win an Oscar and a Golden Globe award with a hearing impairment.

EarQ supplier hearing aids nationwide, has recently launched a HearStrong campaign to raise awareness about hearing impairments. The company has launched the “HearStrong Champions” campaign, an initiative that identifies people with hearing impairments to serve as role models to those affected by hearing loss. The “HearStrong Champions” encourage others to pursue their goals and dreams in spite of having hearing loss.

Although having a hearing impairment can be an adjustment for the family and the child, the condition doesn’t have to ruin the person's life. It is up to the parent to help the child navigate the many challenges of being hearing impaired and make sure that the child feels like there are no limitations because of the condition. Parents should also be proactive in scheduling regular hearing screenings for their child to protect the child's hearing and detect hearing loss. The abundance of knowledge, resources and technology available make it possible for children with hearing impairments to enjoy fulfilling lives.

Hi my name is John O'Connor, I am a father, outdoorsman, sports enthusiast and passionate about living a healthy lifestyle. Check out my new blog at bloggingwjohno.blogspot.com!

New type of "hearing aid" coming?

2013-04-04T11:53:00.001-04:00

Hearing aids, even the most powerful one, have their limits. Many people, myself included, find themselves either near or past these limits and in the domain of cochlear implants (CI).

Obviously CI are very expensive and require hospitalization and serious surgery to implant. Getting a CI also means that person can no longer have MRI scans performed, a very serious consequence.

Researchers are working with a prototype of a new type of "hearing aid" that is "implanted" in the ear drum, a very minor surgery that is done outpatient. The implant can reach 120 dB, which is fairly amazing. More details on this link:

http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2013/april/regaining-proper-hearing-at-last.html

Deaf FAQ

2013-03-09T21:34:00.001-05:00

I know there are countless versions of this elsewhere, but here is mine:

What do I call you?

· Deaf

· Hard of Hearing

· Deaf and dumb (extremely rude, equivalent to the “N” word)

· Deaf mute (rude/ignorant)

· Hearing-impaired (well-meaning, but rude)

Clarity matters more than volume

It does not help to yell or talk really slowly or animated. Speak clearly and normally at an acceptable volume. Clarity is far more important than super loud volume. Most importantly, face me.

Why can’t you understand me well?

People with accents are extremely difficult to understand for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing folks. Also, men and women may be easier or more difficult to understand. Background noise, especially other voices, makes it virtually impossible to understand someone.

“But you speak so well”

Thank you, but I don’t have problems with my vocal cords—I have problems with my ears. Just because I speak well does not mean I can hear or understand you.

The room matters

Small, quiet rooms offer the best possibility of being understood. One-on-one or very small groups of people are best. One person talking at a time, please.

Your hearing changes?

Everyone’s hearing changes day to day, and within a day. It’s such a small change most people don’t notice. It’s a huge difference when some or most of your hearing is gone, though. If I’m really tired or have been listening intently for a long time, my ability to hear dramatically decreases.

Context matters

If I know what we’re talking about already, I may be able to fill in gaps when I miss words. I may also be able to lipread a little if I am familiar with you.

Can you hear that?

I don’t walk around with an eye chart testing everyone with glasses. It’s a bit annoying to get hearing tested several times a day. It’s safe to assume I don’t hear it…

Switched at Birth - Deaf cannot afford to blow chances

2013-01-08T19:13:00.002-05:00

Last night's episode of Switched at Birth was particularly brave in pointing out what is an obvious fact to many, but some might choose to ignore: Deaf cannot afford to blow good chances in life.

To be fair, we could easily substitute dozens of other words in place of Deaf, and the sentence still holds true. Some great examples include women in corporate America, minorities in certain situations, physically handicapped, etc etc etc. Sure, nobody likes to face the truth when it's ugly, but discrimination still exists, even when it's not blatant, and sometimes we have to work harder than everyone else just to stay afloat.

I'm really happy with the writers and I hope they continue to find good topics to expose truth, educate ignorance, and overall make our lives easier.

I actually LIKED the Saturday Night Live ASL skit

2012-11-06T10:15:00.000-05:00

I think there is a world of difference between what was done by Chelsea Lately and SNL.

Chelsea made fun of something she was entirely ignorant about, thus truly insulting Deaf and our language. I think she got what she deserved when people erupted against her. I think she owes an apology for being rude.

SNL, on the other hand, showed a very playful nature, and I think they did a parody in good humor and with a fair amount of knowledge. I found the ASL part pretty funny, the Italian party absolutely hilarious, and the Spanish part really funny too. It's just my opinion, but I think if you're offended by the SNL skit, you may want to grow thicker skin and laugh along.

I'm open to comments as to why it was insulting. Marlee's opinion carried no weight with me, though.

World got even quieter...

2012-08-31T16:20:00.003-04:00

Well I guess it's time to get back in for an adjustment. I graphed my audiograms over the years.

Regal Captioned Movies via Sony Glasses - Followup

2012-08-05T20:12:00.001-04:00

I went to see Dark Knight Rises tonight, so I got to use the caption glasses again. This time armed with the information from my last post, I adjusted them and got even better performance from them.

The little box thing that the glasses plug into has three buttons: the middle button is "menu" and then a + and - button. I pressed menu and adjusted the brightness of the captions to where I wanted them. Then I pressed menu again and was able to adjust the captions "near", "mid", or "far". This was really wonderful and solved my major complaint from last time. My vision is normal, but setting the captions to "far" meant that the captions were much closer to the screen in terms of focusing my eyes to see the movie or the captions (set to near, it feels more like changing focus from he movie screen to a mobile phone in your hand, which caused me fatigue my first time).

The only remaining complaint focuses around the weight of the glasses. They aren't particularly heavy, but towards the end of the movies, my nose has been quite sore. I wear glass sunglasses and they don't bother me over long periods, so it's not just me.

I did ask the ticket seller how many glasses they had. He said about 4 pairs. So unfortunately big groups of Deafies won't be going together, which kind of sucks. Hopefully the theaters get more, but still most theaters don't have any, and Regal has committed to all theaters nationwide.

5 years of ASL classes - DONE!

2012-05-15T22:19:00.000-04:00

I simply cannot believe that five years has blown by like a freight train. It seems like yesterday I walked into that beginning class and took like 2 minutes to finger spell my 5-letter name.

It has been a wonderful experience, and I have met some people I hope to know the rest of my life. Even after five years, I still feel like somewhat of a noob. I guess I have to keep remembering that many of the people I meet have been signing all or most of their lives. Nonetheless, I am ultimately thankful for my new ability to successfully use an interpreter!

I hope I can attend, or even help set up some more local casual events. There don't seem to be many right now, and it would be great to use my ASL more with fluent signers.

Regal Captions All Movies With Special Glasses - A Review

2012-05-14T17:58:00.002-04:00

Regal has been busy working on equal access to movies! I have heard it is their plan to roll closed-captioning for every showtime of every movie to all of their theaters. My local theaters already have this functionality, so I decided to test drive it and go see Avengers.

Upon arrival, you will need to stand in line with the rest of the world, since the ticket kiosks cannot distribute the glasses. I exchanged my driver license for some fancy Sony glasses.

Click here to see a picture a detailed specs on the glasses

So first things first. The glasses really work! Captions are clear, and I discovered halfway through the movie that I could adjust the position of the captions vertically (I initially needed to wear the glasses way down on my nose to get them where I wanted them).

When looking at the screen, the captions are bright green and pretty clear. They aren't too big or too small. It's kind of a weird feeling, if you're used to captions, because the captions move with your head. For example, I could face the side wall of the theater and still have captions. I removed the glasses during the movie and looked at them from all angles, and I was unable to detect any light sources, so these aren't going to bother other movie-goers.

Now for the areas they could be improved. They definitely feel bulky, and even at only 3 ounces, they felt very heavy by the end of the movie! Sony claims that a removable attachment makes them 3D capable, but Regal doesn't have any 3D movies captioned yet, no sure why. Finally, since these are almost guaranteed NOT to fit over a normal pair of glasses, I don't see how they could be used by someone with vision problems bad enough to not be able to watch a movie without their glasses.

One slightly annoying characteristic, is that the captions are not on the same focal plane as the movie. What I mean by this, is that unlike normal captions/subtitles that appear ON the screen, these float in space much "closer" to your face than the screen. So you have to switch focus quickly and often. Imagine holding your hand one foot from your face, and switching focus from your hand to the screen for every sentence. Eye fatigue!

Overall, a great success brought to you by the folks at Sony and Regal. I can't wait to see the future products that will b made possible by refining this technology, or finding a better way!

First time using an ASL interpreter = WOW! (late-deaf)

2012-03-29T15:16:00.001-04:00

I had an important meeting this week. The meeting room is huge, and what sound doesn't "disappear" turns into echoes. To make matters worse, I knew for a fact there would be soft-spoken people present, as well as people with strong foreign accents. So I decided to bite the bullet and use an interpreter for my first time ever.

I have to admit, I was a bit anxious about this whole ordeal. Probably more of a "fear of the unknown" thing, but nonetheless not an easy thing to come to grips with. I worried about my ASL proficiency not being quite good enough. I worried about being able to pay attention both to the faces/emotions of the people speaking as well as the interpreter. Overall, I must say that my fears in this case were completely unfounded. It was wonderful to sit through a meeting and not wonder what I missed when "that person" was talking and I couldn't hear and/or understand them.

I hope all future interpreter situations are as easy as this one!

Rexton Cobalt 16 hearing aids - 3 year update

2012-03-16T19:39:00.000-04:00

So, after having this set of hearing aids for three years now, I can say that I am still quite happy with them.

The bluetooth streaming has proven to be an absolute life-saver for watching movies at home, and being able to hear at church. The longevity of the aids seems good, since I haven't had to send them in for repair yet. I have replaced the receivers a couple times, but the first time or two was covered by the warranty, and they are only about $100 and do not require sending them in for repair, and thus being screwed for a couple weeks. I managed to break my bluetooth remote once, but that was my fault, and I had to pay like $350 out of pocket to get a new one, ouch.

Overall, I would highly recommend these aids, especially to younger or more tech-savvy people. Once the tuning was tweaked a few times to my liking, they are really nice.

So I chose ZVRS

2012-02-29T15:05:00.000-05:00

A few ZVRS people came and gave a great presentation at Deaf Family Night several days ago. Impressive stuff, and it appears overall to be the best choice for me right now.

I'm getting the Z-340, and I will use the Z4 software on my Mac and iPhone also. Now just waiting for my hardware to arrive! I'm still kind of sad I couldn't get the Z20 for free, since I don't have a competitive VP to trade, but the Z340 looks pretty nice, and I like that I can take it on trips with me.

Switched at Birth - bold writing choices last night!

2012-02-29T15:01:00.003-05:00

I was really impressed with the bold choices made last night, exposing some pretty edgy topics in Deaf culture.

The new character Travis is first shown as a strong Deaf militant, intolerant of Hearing people, intolerant of Daphne's intermixing with Hearing and Deaf, and just bitter. Then the writers connected that behavior with another controversial topic: Deaf kids in Hearing families who don't learn sign.

I really like that this episode exposed two controversial topics to the masses, who may otherwise be ignorant of their very existence! Handwaves!!

Teaching Deaf kids ASL - fingerspelling?

2012-01-05T22:39:00.000-05:00

So my 3-year-old son is rapidly learning ASL from me. It's nothing short of amazing how he is accelerating. One thing I haven't done much around him though is fingerspelling. As he learns more, it becomes more difficult for me since I don't know signs for everything under the sun.

There are only two cases, though. Some thing have no signs, and must be finger-spelled, and some things have a sign and I don't know the sign. How do I deal with this??

Let's take an example: Octopus. Clearly this is much to complicated for him to finger spell--if I finger spell this to him he relays back to me "garbage" trying to mimic my hand.

Can someone please help me here to understand how kids learn fingerspelling? Thanks in advance!!

Switched at Birth - lazy signing?

2012-01-05T22:32:00.002-05:00

I watched the premiere of Switched at Birth last night, and although people on the show are improving on their signing skill, it seems like even the Deaf characters are using some lazy signing (but mostly the Hearing characters). Unlike most newbie signers, the Hearing characters have a really decent "flow", but still, I see a lot of lazy signing all around.

Obviously, if the show were realistic, we would be seeing choppy, malformed signing for years, which doesn't make for good TV. What do you all think?

No free VP through ZVRS?

2011-12-05T11:08:00.001-05:00

I do not currently have a VP. If I go to ZVRS, it looks like everything is free if I trade in my Sorenson VP, but if I do not have a VP, then I need to pay??

Sorenson VP is free for me. It seems like if ZVRS wants business of new customers, they should offer the same deal as porting customers from Sorenson. Otherwise, I might just choose Sorenson for my first VP.

Anyone have any advice? I know it's a hot topic right now.

ASL class over - again

2011-11-19T12:15:00.001-05:00

The first trimester of my 5th year ASL class is over. With only two short classes left, I find myself wondering what's next. It has been really enriching to go so deep into a few topics this year, but I feel like I need to have more "general" conversations with people, or I'm never going to be even close to truly fluent.

I'm hoping maybe to start, or help start, Deaf coffee or something similar once or twice a month. Heck, I would even go every week! I'm also waiting patiently for the Sorenson nTouch videophone, which is apparently only being offered in my area to people who already have a Sorenson VP (seems kind of backwards to prioritize people who already have one over people who don't, but whatever). I would love to be able to use VRS and VP with friends soon!

Who knows, maybe I will post another vlog or two. Need to think of things to vlog about, though!! Hah!

Rexton Cobalt 16 - added a new program

2011-11-12T09:40:00.001-05:00

So I decided to switch up my programs a couple months back when I went in to get a replacement bluetooth receiver. Program 1 is still "auto", but I changed program 2 to be "music". The music program has basically no compression, and no noise cancellation. Ironically, I don't use this program for music, but rather for meetings and really quiet, or really noisy rooms.

My office has a very loud air conditioner fan inside, but in "auto" I cannot hear it because my aids block that sound. When I first got my Rextons, I found this to be a very difficult "feature" to get used to. It sounds weird that I would have to get used to noise removal, but there are two reasons: first, the noise cancellation is not perfect, and second, it's a weird sensation to know that something is missing that you should be able to hear, but you cannot hear it for some reason.

To elaborate more on the first issue. The noise cancellation is far from perfect. The program not only blocks noise, but voices become softer as well. So now after a couple years of having these, if I walk into a room (that isn't a library, for example), and it seems that everyone is barely audible yet nobody else is struggling to hear, I can switch to another program, or ask someone if there is some sort of background noise.

So back to the "music" program. If there's some fan or something, or I need a boost in dynamic range for more high-frequencies, I simply switch to this program and maybe bump my volume up a notch. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than any of the other programs I've used. The "speech in noise" program seems to be the worst program for actually understanding speech in noise, since it works so hard at trying to cancel the noise, again bringing vocal volume down with it!

Bottom line: the more effort you put into analyzing your aids and working with your audiologist to understand the problem, the better they will work. Unfortunately though, for those of us with severe/profound loss, aids are still an imperfect solution.

Lecture on Eugenics at Swarthmore - what a great night!

2011-11-09T11:40:00.001-05:00

Last night I got to see two, one-hour lectures from Dr. Brian Greenwald and Dr. Ben Bahan. The first was about eugenics in American/Deaf history, focused somewhat on AGB and his role in this whole thing. The second was a very funny story leading to the conclusion that Deaf people hold the key to the future by preserving ASL.

The eugenics lecture was very eye-opening. I had no idea the USA had probed so deeply into this topic in history. Altogether a great lecture.

Ben's story was truly amazing. Mostly anyone who has learned ASL from classes and books will immediately recognize Ben from his many appearances on classic videotapes. He is truly a great storyteller, and it was thoroughly amusing to watch! Great night!!

Are cochlear implant users deaf?

2011-10-27T16:42:00.002-04:00

John Lee Clark's post titled "Cochlear Implants: A Thought Experiment" hit on one topic I have given a bit of thought to myself:

If you cannot hear without your CI or hearing aids, are you deaf?

This may seem like a simple question, but I think outside the Deaf community, so little thought is given to deafness in general that it becomes unclear what the answer is.

The way I see it is through an analogy. Suppose someone loses their legs in an accident. Now they have a wheelchair. Are they no longer physically disabled? I mean, the wheelchair gives them mobility, right? Oh, but we need to pay attention to the imperfections of the solution of the wheelchair. Much like CI and hearing aids, a wheelchair can provide great help in achieving a more mainstream life, but what about those stairs? What about those stores that place aisles too close together? What about climbing on a stepstool to reach a top shelf? At the end of the day, the person in the wheelchair is in fact still physically disabled, despite the help provided by the wheelchair.

Much the same, if you cannot effectively hear without CI or hearing aids, my opinion is that you are, indeed, deaf. These tools help in most circumstances, but then leave people high and dry in others (e.g. pouring rain, swimming pools, exercise gyms, sleeping, batteries dead, etc etc etc).

Switched at Birth - clearing up some things, distorting others

2011-09-21T16:25:00.001-04:00

First, I applaud the creators/writers of Switched at Birth for bringing common Deaf issues into the mainstream light. Most people never think about any of these things. People mumbling, taking too fast, turning away while talking, talking behind someone, "curing" Deaf with CI, the troubles of mainstreaming, etc.

One problem I have with the show is Daphne's amazing ability to lipread with what appears to be 100% accuracy. While it probably wouldn't make for great TV to have people repeating everything 3-4 times, we probably don't want to further perpetuate the myth that most Deaf/HoH can lipread with any great amount of success.

Captioning ASL vlogs

2011-09-18T17:50:00.003-04:00

This topic seems to always come up, but I have a fairly strong opinion about it, so I want to write a little blurb.

It's true, the Hearing world seems to make very little effort to provide D/HoH with quality captions. So why in the world should we caption ASL vlogs? If the Hearing want access, let them learn ASL, right??? Here are the reasons I think we should at least attempt to caption our ASL vlogs:

1. Lots of HoH and late-deaf don't know ASL, or are learning but are not fluent enough to follow along. I am HoH/late-deaf and I definitely have an interest in keeping up with the issues. I've been learning ASL for 4 years now and quality captioned vlogs like Seek Geo have helped me enormously to learn more common ASL.

2. Hearing people that have a vested interest in the issues may not know ASL at all. Think about family members, teachers and medical professionals involved with D/HoH kids. We should certainly want to help educate them about the issues, since that is in our best interests as a group. But if they visit a vlog and it's not captioned, then we just lost that opportunity. Who knows, maybe a captioned vlog will spark an interest not only in the issue, but also learning ASL!!

3. Captioning vlogs can help Deaf improve their English. This is always a good thing, right? A Deaf friend of mine pointed out this benefit to me a while back, and I think it's great.

Stigma of Hearing Loss

2011-09-11T22:40:00.001-04:00

After reading the article posted on Jamie Berke's blog about hearing loss stigma, I felt the need to add my own experience.

I think being late-deaf is a little like coping with finding out you have a life-long disease. There's a process that needs to happen. The beginning for me was marked by anger and self-pity. That evolved to understanding and finally acceptance and integration of the condition as part of "me". I cannot stress enough that my contact with my local Deaf community, and learning ASL has had an extremely high impact on this process, though. I see, through others, that becoming Deaf is not something that is embarrassing or shameful. I see the incredible intelligence amongst the community, and knowing my own intelligence and ability does not depend on my ability to hear others.

Through the process, I have come to prefer larger hearing aids because people can more easily understand "why" I cannot understand what they're saying, and why they need to repeat themselves endlessly sometimes. Vanity simply takes a back seat. And I truly believe that when you show people intelligence and ability, ageism and prejudice can vanish as they realize that hearing has no bearing on either.

Like most of the medical community, hearing professionals simply do not understand the Deaf community, so they follow the marketing and accept the stigma about the very people they are trying to help. They push the "invisible" hearing aids, and they talk about how much these new aids will help you function in society. For people with mild losses, this is great and true, but the rest of us need to truly come to terms with reality.

In terms of overcoming stigma, I see some great advances in Hollywood, and we all can be our own best advocates by educating those around us. If one in ten are D/HoH, then we all need to make sure we educate at least 9 people in our lives to work towards a brighter future.

Best way to tell people you're Deaf?

2011-09-08T13:57:00.001-04:00

I'm curious about the different ways people indicate to hearing folks the you're Deaf. I also found myself wondering why, in a nation where a huge number of people understand the phrase "no habla ingles", nobody understands the sign for "deaf". Seems like it would be worthwhile to teach everyone this basic sign in school at some point.

Switched at Birth - no captions on Netflix!!

2011-09-02T14:04:00.002-04:00

Of all the ironies, only the first couple episodes of Switched at Birth have captions on Netflix. A show that has the power to increase awareness about the Deaf world, inaccessible to Deaf. So stupid!