Individuals living with a hearing impairment can often experience unique challenges when communicating with others. Here we explore what some of these challenges may be and offer some practical strategies you can use to enhance your conversations and interactions with the person you care for.
Attracting the attention of someone who is deaf
When communicating with someone who has a sensory impairment such as hearing loss, it can really help them if they are clear when you are speaking to them from the start of the conversation. The best way to help someone with that is to ensure you attract their attention. The person who is heard of hearing will be able to share the best way to capture their attention but if this is unclear, there are a few strategies you can try.
If trying gain someone’s attention from a distance such as making a gesture, maintaining clear eye contact and standing in front of them so you can be seen.
If you are standing close to the person you are trying to speak to, you may also be able to place your hand on their shoulder in order to gain their attention. It is important to note that this works best if you know the individual well and that they are okay with physical contact, because it can be startling for those who aren’t used to being touched.
If trying to capture the attention of someone who is hard of hearing when they are at home, you might also find turning the lights on and off to alert them to your presence as you enter a room to be an effective too.
How someone experiences sensory overload will be unique to them in any situation. However, when the brain receives too much information or it struggles to focus on one thing it can trigger a fight, flight or freeze response. It can also cause a number of physical and emotional symptoms. Physically, sensory overload might feel like discomfort, intensity and agitation, with the heart speeding up and the breath becoming faster. Some people experience headaches or other pain in their body too.
On the other hand, emotional responses to sensory overload can be any emotion from mild stress, all the way up to anxiety, fear and panic. When someone has experienced a physical or emotional response as a result of sensory overload, it is quite natural to feel exhausted and a deep need to rest as their nervous system recovers and comes back into balance.
Ways to communicate with someone who is deaf or hard of hearing
Sign language
Many individuals were are hard of hearing or deaf find it helpful to use British Sign Language (BSL). BSL is a language in itself using hand and finger movements with its own grammatical structure that doesn’t rely on a person’s knowledge of the English language. There are however alternatives to BSL which can be used such as Makaton and Sign Supported English (SSE) but these rely on the person using them to know English first.
To help communicate with someone who has a hearing impairment and/or translate for them, you might also learn a form of sign language. Alternatively, you might find it helpful to access support from a translator or translating services, especially for important meetings or events.
Lip reading
If the person you care for uses lip reading as a strategy to understand what you are saying to them, you can support their experience by facing them so your mouth is visible, talk at a normal speed in clear English, and put the most important information right at the beginning of your sentence.
Visual aids
You can also use visual aids and drawings to help enhance understanding of a topic or conversation for you and the person you care for.
Ways to enhance what someone with a sensory impairment can hear (accordion)
Alongside developing new or different ways to communicate, there are also a number of things you can do as a carer to make it easier for someone with a sensory impairment to engage in conversation.
Making some simple changes to their home, like reducing background noise, improving acoustics, and ensuring proper lighting can all enhance the listening environment for the person you care for. Rearranging furniture so sound can travel better from the TV or using sound-absorbing materials like rugs, cushions and heavier curtains can also make a significant difference in improving sound clarity and reducing auditory distractions.
Assistive Listening Devices (ALDs) like hearing aids can be very useful for many people and can also be used in partnership with a Hearing Loop (or audio induction loop) that helps someone with a hearing impairment hear conversations more easily by amplifying speech and reducing background noise.
Cochlear implants might also be something the person you care for wishes to explore, and can significantly improve speech understanding and the ability to communicate.
Using pictures and visual aids like written notes, diagrams or gestures can all significantly enhance communication for people with hearing loss.
Written communication on a mobile phone or computer screen can also help to make it easier for someone with hearing loss to communicate.
Ways to enhance telephone and video conversations for someone with a hearing impairment
There are also things to do to support the person you care for in being able to make the most of conversations on the phone or via video messaging. For example, you might explore accessible phones, ipads and tablets that can use live captioning to translate conversations into text. If the person you care for is unable to communicate with speech or text, Project Activate is an app that allows android users to use their facial expressions instead.
Other ways to enhance telephone and video conversations include video relay services, or video interpreting apps, that allow people who use sign language to have conversations to be translated for them in real time.