Hi, I'm Kay. I''m a wellness professional big nerd
and i have bilateral high frequency hearing loss i also wear hearing aids
so i am super excited to take you into my world my hearing loss journey with house institute on
now listen hi kay great to have you back for this week's question what tips or advice do you have
for those looking to support people with hearing loss and what does it mean to be a good ally
great question thank you so much for that wonderful question um first and foremost
before i go into tips i think the first thing i want to say is that as a disabled individual i'm
so used to like unfortunately not being believed or heard so i think first and foremost just
hearing disabled individuals are people with hearing loss and holding space for them without
trying to interject about oh well i know this person who and this is how they do it or without
interjecting and just putting your own spin on things or like those things are not helpful so
as we give tips and advice for you just processing it because i think sometimes
people without hearing loss their ego comes up to defend or deflect and say well
i'm that's not me i understand completely like that's not me those are other people if someone
in the hearing loss community in particular loves you enough and cares about you enough to say
hey i want to share these best practices so you can support me
say thank you first and foremost and internalize that and then show up for that person a couple of
more concrete steps on how you can support individuals with hearing loss number one
people think that shouting helps people with hearing loss hear better and that is not the case
when you shout you run the likelihood of actually distorting the sound of your voice even more
and it makes it harder for us to hear so instead of shouting just take a step back
breathe and maybe pronounce your words a little clearer a little sharper if that does not work
because i know for me i have high frequency hearing loss sometimes a person will say a
word over and over again and say like crystal are you listening i'm like what are you listening i'm
like what are you saying are you listening and i'm like no don't shout the word listening maybe
try a different word try to rephrase that word so instead of saying are you listening are you
hearing me do you understand like using different words or rephrasing your statements and sentences
definitely helps i feel guilt i feel tired because you are running a marathon or saying the word over
and over again and i'm on the receiving end just trying to understand you so no more shouting just
breathe pronounce your words and if that does not work rephrase your sentence another tip number two
for hearing loss that's very helpful is make sure that you have the attention of the person with the
hearing loss so what does that look like making sure that you're sitting in front of them and
you have eye contact with them so i've seen a lot of people maybe turn their head away or they're
doing something else and having a conversation while they're doing something else and their
body and their heads are turned away from the person with hearing loss so if i go like this
me with a person with hearing loss is like what's going on all your audio from your speaking is
going in the opposite direction than what it needs to be another tip that i want to share as
point number three is not to be dismissive um this is actually a pain point of mine because
as you can imagine someone with hearing loss it it could be difficult for us to hear the conversation
fully so sometimes conversations go really fast or important points are being made and we don't
hear it fully and what happens is that a person who is talking might repeat themselves
or they're having the flow of the conversation and me as a person who's very proactive about
trying to stay in the loop with the conversation may ask you hey can you repeat what you said or
hey what are you talking about or hey i heard i see all of you laughing what was the joke again
and then the worst thing you can do is say never mind don't worry about it we didn't say anything
important like being very dismissive of the person with hearing loss it really causes at least for
me to feel isolated now not to feel part of the group um conversation and things of that nature
just making sure that you include the person with hearing loss so you're making sure that you're
inviting them into the conversation if you are switching topics let that person know
hey we're talking about this now and so i can jump in and have that conversation if the flow
of conversation is happening and one person is talking the worst thing you can do is try to
jump into the conversation and have multiple people calling or talking at the same time
so you can imagine the more voices that are having conversations at the same time the more jumbled it
becomes and it's harder for me or any person with hearing loss to really differentiate the voices
and look around and trying to figure out who said what and where is the audio coming from
sometimes i'll be in a restaurant situation having like a brunch with friends and everybody's excited
everybody wants to talk and my my head is just like who what what's going on like who's talking
what's the point of conversation so try your best to have only one person talk at a time
so you can have the person with hearing loss follow the flow of conversation easier thank you
know that there's life after hearing loss i'm living a great fabulous life right now
actually um so i really want to let people know that it's okay to feel the emotions
that you're feeling the trick is just not to get stuck in those emotions and know that you
can reinvent yourself hello my name is dr kevin peng neurotologist here at the house institute
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