Hearing loss is tough for the person who has it, but it can also be frustrating for friends and family. Many of the behavioral changes needed to make communication easier — facing the person with hearing loss, speaking one at a time, enunciating in a clear and steady voice — are up to them. This can be exhausting, especially if this takes them outside of their normal speech pattern. For some, speaking at a volume loud enough for us to hear can feel like shouting.
The frustration of communication challenges can sometimes cause them to lash out in anger.
“Turn your hearing aids up!”
“Shouldn’t you be hearing better now that you have hearing aids?”
“I don’t think you are trying hard enough to hear?”
Heavy sigh. I’m not sure how I could try any harder….
Communication Takes Constant Effort
When you have hearing loss, hearing is not something we do easily in the background while completing another task. It is the task!
One way to describe it is like a game of Wheel of Fortune. Some of the letters are filled in. Others are blank. We use visual cues and what we know about the context of the conversation to make educated guesses to fill in the sounds that we miss. This keeps our brain working overtime because by the time we figure out the meaning of what has just been said, the conversation may have moved to another topic or another speaker. Or maybe it is our turn to reply!
All this mental processing takes constant effort, so when we are told we aren’t trying hard enough to hear, it can be hurtful. If only the speaker understood how hard we are trying to hear them.
Shift the Focus to Communication
The good news is that communication is about more than just hearing. Yes, our devices amplify sounds. Some can even make certain sounds crisper or sharper. But, sadly, even the most advanced devices do not restore our hearing to normal.
Good communication takes more than just a device.
In Hear & Beyond: Live Skillfully with Hearing Loss, we describe a three-legged stool of skills needed to communicate well. One leg is, of course, technology, but the others are attitudes that promote self-advocacy and non-technical behavioral changes that enhance communication.
When we (and our communication partners) use all three legs of the stool, the effort is shared. And the focus shifts from hearing better to communicating better.
A Better Question to Ask People with Hearing Loss
Rather than asking people with hearing loss if “our hearing aids are turned up” or if “we are trying as hard as we can to hear,” choose to ask a better question, one that is shared.
“Are each of us in this conversation doing everything we can to support better communication?” A successful connection is more likely when everyone’s answer to this important question is “Yes!”
Readers, are you and your conversation partners trying hard enough to communicate?
Related Posts
- Can Hearing Less Ever Help You Understand More?
- Seven Ways You Can Make Life Easier for Someone With Hearing Loss
- Hearing Loss: Please Turn Down the Rain
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No. I can tell when the conversation ends with my husband saying “Just forget it” or “Never mind”. Whatever he said is then lost whether it was important or not. He is just at the end of his rope with frustration and is giving up.
So sorry to hear this. Maybe show him this post as well. https://livingwithhearingloss.com/2015/05/26/please-dont-say-never-mind/
I always like to remind people that amplification isn’t clarification. My aids make sounds louder, they don’t make things clearer. If I have trouble with how my conversation partner makes a certain sound, it doesn’t matter how hard I try, I’m not going to hear it.
Your book helped me reframe how I think about conversations: it’s not solely my responsibility. The other person needs to work, too, to make it a success.
Well said! Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Do you have any tips for communicating in groups? I use live transcribe, hearing aids and lipread but there are no cues for whose talking, no context giventhere, there are those who don’t like to be looked at when speaking or who want to cover their mouths and want to talk over the top of one another and removing these barriers impedes the natural conversation for them so I’m now at a loss as to what else I can do to help myself follow conversations like this.
Perhaps these posts would help! Thank you for your question.
https://livingwithhearingloss.com/2015/01/16/how-to-have-a-better-conversation-with-someone-with-hearing-loss/
https://livingwithhearingloss.com/2022/10/04/hearing-loss-talk-siri-to-me/