There are various levels of deafness and various ways to communicate, some reply on using BSL (Bristish Sign Language) and some reply on Lip-reading (like me!). In my case I can hear noises and make out what they are, peoples voices can sound foreign to me if I'm not lip-reading them. I wear a cochlear Implant as without I am profoundly deaf and cannot hear a thing. (Can be a blessing sometimes :).) so the sounds I hear sounds more electronic than what hearing people are used to hearing.
My Barriers
- Using the phone, all sounds foreign to me (If I can hear them as some people do tend to speak quietly).
- Group meetings, if everyone talks at once its hard to follow when lip-reading and does take a lot of concentration .
- Peoples attitude can make things difficult, Some have no patience when being asked to repeat a few times what they had said (Mainly for me it may be because this person is very hard to lipread as not much mouth movement is being made)
Things would get very uncomfortable on both parts and I have had some situations where this person would walk off. I would be left standing there feeling quite distressed by this and sometimes frustrated.
When I get phone calls at home, my kids would usually answer for me and if someone askes for me, the would explain that I was deaf and can hear/speak on mybehalf. The most common reply that always gets me laughing in disbelief is "Ok I will call back later"......Mmmm ok that helps!!, like I'll become hearing by then!!.
If someone needs to get my attention (or anyone who is deaf) especially if not standing in front of me, should tap on the left or right should so they know which way to turn. (Some deaf people seem to find it offensive if tapped on the middle back as they dont know which way to turn.)
What would help. :)
Try and keep hands away from your mouth when speaking.
Good eye contact, clear lip pattern and good patience.
No turning head or back to this person when speaking, especially when using a screen/board showing Info, this person needs to remember to turn around and face the team when talking otherwise its difficult to lipread when you can only see the back of thier heads. After a while it becomes 2nd nature.
Helps if one person speaks at a time (especially in group meetings as its like watching a tennis match on fast forward!)
Helps if theres no background noise (depending on how deaf one is, in my case I can hear noises, people talking, typing, phone ringing, photocopier going etc. For me the noise is fine but some deaf people do struggle more trying to communicate when theres a bit of background noise going off.
Suggestions :)
Perhaps once in a while the team could do some lipreading games, no using your voice or whispering.
Words look similar when not hearing them. For example "Where is my baby/paper" accent permitting. Or words like "Gold", "Old" and "Cold".
Lipreading is 75% guesswork. I can sometimes lip-read wrong especially if someone has a very strong scottish accent like my Mums partner for example. I thought he had said something about Lard so off I went to get him some lard only for him to give me an odd look and burst out laughing at me. He said no "The music is loud", I only understood the lard bit so assumed the rest. "Loud" in Scottish can sound like "Lard"!. Needless to say my face went a wee bit red!
Perhaps some more BSL (Basic Intro) courses could be made more available in workplaces, it would be fun to learn and also help reach more of a wider understanding with deaf people especially if they use alot of BSL in thier lifes