From the 1966 Motown hit duet, It Takes Two, Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston sing of all of the many things in life that are better with two people rather than one. The same is true when it comes to communicating. To be prosperous, the speaker and the listener should follow guidelines to maximize understanding.
The person who has hearing loss doesn’t suffer alone. Family and friends experience impatience and frustration as a consequence of a communication breakdown. The communication approaches outlined below go a way to reduce many of these frequent communication difficulties.
Communication strategies for talking into the hearing impaired:
- Is your listener paying attention? Ensure you’ve got the attention of the hearing impaired person before you start to speak.
- Think about the obvious. If you are speaking to someone who wears hearing aids, who tells you or utilizes an assistive listening device that he has trouble hearing: slow down! Speak clearly and just without falling the quantity a little louder. Do not yell or over-enunciate your words.
- Be aware of your environment. Can there be distracting background noise? Does the room echo? Is there enough light for your person to realize your face when you speak.
- Assist the hearing impaired person”listen to their eyes” Face the person at all times. Don’t talk with anything from your mouth. Keep your hands and other objects away from your mouth.
- A favorable attitude gets results. Stay patient. Never talk about the hearing impaired individual in his existence… as if he cannot hear. Ask what you can do to help communication.
- When at first, you do not succeed, try, try again. Do not just repeat it again if something you say is not known. Rather, try rephrasing the message with words.
Communication approaches for the hearing impaired listener:
- Get motivated. The more motivated you are to improve your hearing, the more willing you are to wear your hearing aids or use an assistive listening device. Motivation brings an openness to change. Comes a willingness also to research solutions and also to discuss your feelings.
- Do not deny that you have a hearing loss. Denial of your hearing loss will only make matters worse. Inform the speaker of your hearing problems and suggest ways to comprehend.
- Face the speaker. Speechreading skills will develop more quickly in the event that you focus on confronting the speaker through communication. See the speaker’s mouth and attempt to focus on the subject of dialogue, even if you think you’re missing a lot.
- Make eye contact. Communication improves when you mix with looking, listening. Take note of expressions, facial expressions, and body language to aid with understanding.
- Do not be a pretender. Pretending if you don’t you understand will only exacerbate the problem. Nothing brings attention to how you have a hearing loss than answering a question you didn’t understand or laughing in the wrong areas.
- Verify your comprehension. Ask for it to be repeated if you believe you’ve missed part of the dialogue. To aid with the flow of the dialog, repeat the part of the conversation you did understand.
- Be aware of your surroundings. Can you position yourself to see this speaker’s faces? Is there currently distracting background sound? Is the room reverberant?
- Be specific with your requests for assistance. Ask that he slow down if the speaker is talking too rapidly. If the speaker is still talking to request that he speak. Request that he remove it In the event the speaker covers his mouth with a hand or paper. Request that you are faced by him if the speaker turns away from you while speaking.
- Be patient. The speaker will be more likely to be patient as well if you’re individual.
“It takes two” hearing aids also!
Not only does”it take two” to boost communication, but studies reveal wearing two hearing aids has a lot of benefits. Based on Sergei Kochkin, Ph. D. President of the Better Hearing Institute in Alexandria, VA, “it is essential that the person with the hearing loss be given the opportunity to experience binaural (two hearing aids) amplification in front of a conclusion on [wearing] one or two hearing aids are made. Like the way refractory problems in both eyes have been treated with a pair of glasses, it makes sense that bilateral hearing loss ought to be treated with binaural hearing aids.”
A number of the benefits of binaural hearing are:
- Those who use two hearing aids regularly understand speech and conversation significantly better than people who use one. Furthermore, speech understanding is improved in challenging listening environments.
- Audio quality improves when wearing hearing aids binaurally since the hearing scope increases from 180 degrees to 360 degrees. Hearing Aids in Cambridge, ON – Cambridge Hearing Centre
- Wearing two hearing aids normally requires less volume than you, reducing stimulation and resulting in greater breeding of amplified sounds.
- Often, with just one hearing aid, many words and sounds sound alike. However, with two, noises are more easily accessible. The sound’s origin is more easily determined.
- Studies have shown that when one hearing aid is worn, the unaided ear will lose its capacity to listen to and understand. Wearing two retains both ears busy.
- Hearing is not as exhausting and listening more pleasant since binaural wearers don’t have to strain to hear the ear. Click here to get an appointment
- Two-eared hearing ends in a feeling of balanced reception of sound whereas monaural hearing make an unusual sense of sounds being heard in 1 ear.
- A reduce volume control setting is required with two hearing aids than is demanded with one. The result is a much better tolerance for loud noises and reduced chances of comments.
- About 50% of tinnitus (ringing in the ears) sufferers report improvement when wearing hearing aids. If an individual with tinnitus wears a hearing aid in 1 ear, there will still be ringing in the ear.
- An overwhelming majority of hearing aid users with hearing loss in both ears choose two when given the decision to hear binaurally. A survey of over 5,000 customers with hearing loss in both ears suggests that binaurally fit wearers are more satisfied than those fit with one.