Advocating for Yourself While Wearing Hearing Aids

Here at ‘Iwearhearingaids.org', I have a couple of overarching themes which I consider to be ‘The Realities of Life with hearing aids.'  Those realities are 1) You need to wear your hearing aids, 2) Your physical location will help you hear better, 3) Water is not your friend and 4) It is not enough to just wear your hearing aids.  I have chosen these four realities because most situations experienced by hearing aid users fall generally into one or two of these categories.

There are many times in life where advocating for and asserting yourself is the most important thing you can do.  For example, asking for a raise when you know you deserve one or asking to have your burger re-cooked if it was under/over-cooked.  You get the idea.  Other times, it’s necessary to have other people help you advocate for yourself, for example getting a lawyer when your landlord isn’t living up to half of the contract.  Regardless of the situation, you need to know when it’s time to advocate for yourself.  When it comes to being able to hear, I can’t think of a single reason why you should compromise.  The good news is, I’ve only been in a very small number of situations where I had any trouble getting the help I needed.  In each of those cases, I was able to come to some arrangement that was satisfactory.  In short, I advocated for myself successfully.

What is Advocacy?

In a nutshell, I think of advocacy as two-fold.  First, putting myself in the best position to hear.  Second, simply letting people know that I am hearing impaired and why I need certain accommodations. 

For example, background noise makes it difficult to hear in a restaurant, so I position myself so that my back is against a wall to minimize the background noise.  Most of the time, I’m able to subtly take the seat with my back to a wall and my dinner companions don’t even know what I’m up to.  However, sometimes they beat me to the best spot, so I explain the situation to them and they immediately let me have that seat.

Being Assertive

Advocating for yourself requires that you be assertive.  Most of the time you’re not going to need to do anything but explain to someone the situation and how you need to be accommodated.  If there’s resistance, ask them if they have any ideas to help you that would be a good compromise.  However, if the compromise isn’t satisfactory, or turns out to be inadequate, you should continue to assert your needs until you are satisfied.  Focus on why you need something to be done the way it is, usually, that is enough.

Being assertive also requires that you are calm and persistent.  If you begin to yell or attack the people with whom you’re trying to work, chances are they’ll be less inclined to help.  I am very fortunate in that I have never had a situation where it escalated in a negative way.  Only once, while I was trying to work with a particularly arrogant professor, have I had any trouble, which I resolved using the ‘Americans with Disabilities Act.’

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Part of advocacy and being assertive is knowing the law.  The ADA protects you from discrimination and requires reasonable accommodations be made for people with disabilities.  Simply knowing that helps should you ever get into a situation with an employer or a school where people are not being accommodating.  On the job, bring up the ADA to your manager, talk to someone in Human Resources about your needs. Also, check out the services available to you through the government (www.ada.gov) if you feel the need to.  Try searching the ADA website for ‘reasonable accommodations for hearing loss’ if you’re looking for a place to start.  

Please realize that ‘reasonable accommodation’ doesn’t mean ‘whatever you want.’  So, you may have to compromise.

Conclusion

Having a hearing loss requires vigilance, advocacy, and assertiveness on your part to be able to function well.  Usually explaining to people why you need something to be done, is enough.  With practice, you’ll find that most of the time you’ll advocate for yourself silently through where you position yourself and with whom you choose to spend your time.  The people I spend most of my time with at work and at home understand my needs and are genuinely interested in making sure I’m accommodated.  I am truly grateful to them.

Until next time, please keep in mind that if you need hearing aids and don't wear them, you should!  If you know someone who needs them and doesn't, do them a favor and talk to them.  If you need to, send them to this site.  It's ok to wear hearing aids, there are lots of us who do!

Soundtrack of Silence - Snap Judgement Podcast Episode #903

This particular podcast episode by Snap Judgement is a really wonderful look into the lives of a man, a couple and eventually a family whose lives are touched by hearing loss.  I really hope you're able to take some time to listen to this story!

Snap #903 - Soundtrack Of Silence

https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/snap-903-soundtrack-silence/

Closed Captioning (CC) for the Hearing Impaired

Here at ‘Iwearhearingaids.org', I have a couple of overarching themes which I consider to be ‘The Realities of life with hearing aids.'  Those realities are 1) You need to wear your hearing aids, 2) Your physical location will help you hear better, 3) Water is not your friend and 4) It is not enough to just wear your hearing aids.  I have chosen these four realities because most situations experienced by hearing aid users fall generally into one or two of these categories.

Closed Captioning (CC) falls into the fourth category because despite wearing your hearing aids, the way movies and television are produced makes it incredibly difficult to hear voices which ultimately make it very difficult to hear the dialogue watching TV/Movies. However, it is entirely possible to watch a TV/Movie without your hearing aids using CC!

TV

When I was a kid, CC did not exist (or it wasn’t widespread at all).  Now, it's everywhere, and that's a good thing!  I don’t remember this, but it turns out that as a kid I would ignore cartoons and watch the commercials because I couldn't hear the voices or read the lips of the cartoons, and commercials are louder than the regular programming.  The first tv shows that I remember watching that had CC were ‘Full House', ‘Rugrats', ‘Wishbone' and ‘Arthur'.

Once most television shows and home movies started regularly using CC, my consumption of on-screen media really took off.  But there were a few times when I would go to a friend's house and we'd be watching something with CC, and they'd complain about not being able to watch the show because they were busy reading the subtitles.  And perhaps you feel the same way.  To that, I respond that the benefits to you are obvious.  Your friends and family should be encouraged to use CC when they watch tv or movies with you.  They will eventually be able to watch movies and shows with no headaches or annoyance due to the reading/watching duality.  So will you.

Movies

Movie theaters have gotten somewhat better about making showtimes available with CC for the Hard of Hearing and Deaf community.  Unfortunately, they're not frequent enough or especially convenient. 

I recently went to see ‘Dr. Strange' in the movie theater.  I went to a show which was not CC knowing full well that I'd miss a lot of the dialogue.  But I did my best and really thought that I'd caught most of the plot and activity.  However, when I rented it at home and watched it with CC, I realized that I missed TONS of dialogue and plot activity because I didn't or couldn't hear voices.  I often opt out of going to a movie at a theater unless it's a show I really want to experience on the big screen.  Usually, in that case, I go prepared to miss a lot, and I'm prepared to rent the show when it becomes available, so I can watch it with CC.

Sports and News on TV

There's a significant delay between what's said during sporting events and newscasts on tv and what comes across the screen via CC.  There's a couple of ways to handle this.  First, turn CC off, turn up the volume and do your best.  This is especially handy during sports because CC ticker gets in the way of the plays that are developing on the screen.  Second, turn off the volume and read the CC.  Have you ever been to the gym with a TV showing CC and you couldn't hear the volume?  It's surprisingly easy!  Finally, you can do both the hearing and reading thing.  Do it enough and you'll get pretty good at it.

Online/YouTube, Etc.

Until recently, the online video websites didn't have a CC option, and it's still hit or miss on whether they offer it.  However, this service is gaining in popularity and accuracy.  I believe that most online CC services use tech-based voice translating services, so the accuracy of the translation is mediocre.  I'm sure it'll get better as time passes, but in the meantime, I recommend using it as much as possible, so that the content providers get as much demand for that service as possible.  The more they see there's demand, the more they'll invest in the technology.  Perhaps, you could persuade your family and friends to also utilize these services to increase demand.

Conclusion

Closed Captioning is one of the great technological advancements for Deaf and Hard of Hearing people in the past 25 years.  It's allowed us to consume digital media content that was otherwise only accessible to people with hearing.  I have a personal policy not to watch videos on TV or online that don't provide CC services.  As I mentioned above, I also only go to select movies in the theater for the same reason.

Until next time, please keep in mind that if you need hearing aids and don't wear them, you should!  If you know someone who needs them and doesn't, do them a favor and talk to them.  If you need to, send them to this site.  It's ok to wear hearing aids, there are lots of us who do!