Happy 2021 and good riddance 2020! It is no surprise that many of our most popular blog posts this year were related in some way to Covid-19. Whether it was mask wearing or the move to video conference calls, people with hearing loss faced new challenges with grit and resilience. We came together to advocate for our needs — clear masks, captions on video conference calls, communication access in hospital settings — and to support one another as we learned to navigate this strange new world. I could not be prouder to be a part of the hearing loss community!
Thank you to all my readers for your engagement, your commentary and for the camaraderie of our online community. I am also grateful for your support of the petition Free Captions for People with Hearing Loss on Video Conferencing Platforms. Google and Microsoft rose to our challenge. Only Zoom remains. Thank you to the various media organizations who helped raise awareness about this issue — NPR’s Here & Now, The Washington Post, Hearing Health Technology Matters, Hearing Tracker and Hearing Journal to name a few.
Please enjoy our top 10 posts of 2020. I look forward to sharing more with you in 2021.
Our Top 10 Hearing Loss Posts of 2020
- How to Explain Hearing Loss to the Uninitiated
- Masks are the Latest Obstacle for People with Hearing Loss
- Hearing Loss Access: Zoom & Google, Make Free Captions Available Now
- Seven Ways You Can Make Life Easier For Someone With Hearing Loss
- Five Things I Wish Everyone Knew About Hearing Loss
- Do You Hear Better in the Morning?
- Hearing Loss: Are Clear Masks Really the Answer?
- Hearing Access: Zoom is Beta Testing Integrated Auto Captions
- When Your Hearing Aid Settings are Just Wrong
- Your Covid-19 Hearing Loss Survival Guide
Readers, what was your favorite post of the year?
“Hearing Loss” includes profound deafness so sign language interpreter is important also.
Of course, yet the vast majority of people with hearing loss do not use sign language. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.