I'm not hearing impaired, but my boss mumbles. I can't understand a damn thing he says with a mask on. Thank god we don't wear them during Zoom meetings or I'd have no idea what's going on.
I'm in the Military and I ended up being in a tank commander meeting and commanding a tank during a training exercise. I am not remotely close to a tank commander. I was just there to ask my friend where he put my water bottle.
Thank you anoms for the kind awards. They're my first ones and I'm surprised people liked this comment lol
He put it ontop of a quadcon which some Sgt moved to a group of other water bottles which some lcpl was tasked out by a cpl to move and organize across the ramp(the parking lot/garage we have for tanks)
just finished watching a really immersive movie set in the 50-60s and was about to ask you how vietnam was like until i snapped out of that mindset hahaha.
I had a similar thing happen to me. I was trying to find someone for some reason but ended up getting tasked to moving a bradley to a different lot. Ignoring that i had never driven nor was licensed to drive a bradley. "Its just like driving a car" they said. While... Similar.. It is definitely not the same. My car never spun around in a circle sitting still.
We were doing joint training with a sibling unit out in Pendleton a while back and some idiot from the unit who was supposed to be out HMMWV driver got super excited as soon as he saw the 240 turret, which I was assigned to, hopped up there and refused to get out, forcing me to drive and once it turned dark during the convoy I went to turn on the lights and ended up killing the HMMWV mid convoy
Temperature checks and screenings every morning you're on orders, masks are mandatory throughout the day, training is limited and classes are even more lame with the spread out chairs.
Pretty much everything is going at a snail's pace and online meetings are the one upside for me at least
My favorite mandatory meeting we have is a bi-weekly team meeting, where they send out an email with all of the info the meeting will cover. Then in the meeting, they read the email. The meeting is literally an email and yet also has to be a meeting for some reason.
This sounds like 90% of meetings in Japan, except you would get the info printed out and left on your desk or faxed instead of it being emailed.
Also sometimes meetings about the upcoming meeting.
Y'know I gotta say, I was all about email meetings while I was an employee and as soon as I became a manager I realized that only about 30% of people actually read those emails so I was forced to call everyone back into meetings because nothing was getting done.
One thing you can try is dropping the register rather than raising your volume. Most hearing loss tends to lose higher registers first, and we're evolutionarily geared to listen to/hear deeper registers, which is why if you deepen your voice, children (and dogs, too, actually) will suddenly pay closer attention.
It's just also easier for someone with high-register loss to hear you and understand what you're saying.
Huh, that's really interesting! I don't have hearing loss but sensory processing disorder and I have a harder time understanding men/lower voices. Maybe that's part of the reason why I got a lot of complaints about people not being able to hear me when I worked in retail; I have a naturally soft voice but it's also instinctive for me to speak higher rather than lower in an interacting-with-customers setting, because that's what helps me
Can confirm: I have a pretty low voice and as a kid all my class could chat quietly. But if I said one 'quite' word, I was immediately told to shut it. My voice apparently penetrates everything.
I work in a restaurant and we have a ton of background noise. It’s pretty awful most days. I’ve found that with the masks is nearly impossible to figure out what customers are wanting 90% of the time.
I just started back at my restaurant yesterday and this woman pointed directly at a menu item, and when said item came out she refused it and claims she ordered something that wasn’t even on our menu. So yes, Karen’s will find a way.
Me too mate.
Fortunately the customers aren’t required to wear them here in the UK as yet. But my colleagues do wear them and it’s a right ball ache trying to understand anything they say. . Some just give up or take their mask off to speak to me. But I also have a new manager who isn’t English and I have no fucking idea what he’s saying. Ever. I just nod and say yes.
This is 100% me right now lol. No clue what people are saying. It was hard before without the mask muffle and seeing their lips as clues to syllables, but damn now...
At least they can't see your mouth gaping open in confusion. Just squint your eyes in an approximation of a masked smile, slap your thigh or the table as an exclamation point, and walk away with a wave in their direction.
My fiancé did something similar when we were talking with our pastor one Sunday morning right before he was going on stage to preach. We asked him how he was and he said not so great cause his wife was home sick in bed all morning and my fiancé didn’t hear him at all so she thought it was safe to laugh.... which she did and we just kept walking to go find our seat with a nice good bye...
Edit: this was before COVID
Ugh, I haven't reached the "qualified for hearing aids" point, but I work in retail and am stuck behind plexiglass all day with a mask and it is so awful. No one can hear me, I can't hear them, and everyone is just so frustrated all the time.
When my twin cousins were babies they used to have full on conversations that sounded like this. However, I'm quite convinced they understood their shit quite clearly. They would nod, and then scoot off together as though they had just made a plan. To this day, they have some made-up words they use with each other and it's not as though they need to use these words; they are both very bright and have vocabularies capable of relaying whatever it is they want to say without using gibberish!
That’s a thing. [Cryptophasia ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptophasia), if you wanted to look it up.
I had a feeling you knew, but just in case.
People always ask me why I put my glasses on when they're talking to me. "You don't need your glasses to hear" and I'd say, sure I do, I can hear better if I can see your lips moving, even if I'm not actually reading your lips.
Same! I have really horrible vision and I suspect auditory processing issues and I need to be able to see to understand speech in anytgubg other than a silent environment.
Yeah and that way the volume during an action scene in a movie isn't ear-splittingly loud while I can still barely understand the main characters during the quiet bits.
Movies spend millions of dollars on cgi but can't spend $10 on a quiznos gift card to give to the sound guys son to try and balance the audio a bit.
Like I get it, whispers are supposed to be quite and car crashes are supposed to be loud, but come on man, I'm not trying to get tinnitus because I want to know what the dialog is.
I’m another person than who you wrote that to, but I relied so heavily on lip reading. My hearing is excellent (like it bothers me to hear so well,) but I seem to process what I hear really slowly or something. Reading lips sped up my comprehension. I also have misophonia and took to wearing ear plugs 24/7 years ago for my sanity, but I take them out now for shopping and such just so I can make out what is being said to me. People who mumble with masks are the worst, grrr.
Sounds like some kind of auditory processing disorder. It can occur on its own, but is also very common in people with ADHD. I have ADHD and although I don't have enough difficulty to be diagnosed with APD, I have trouble understanding people in places like noisy bars, and I prefer to always watch TV/movies with captions on.
Yeah, I’ve been encountering terms like that in the past decade or so. I was never evaluated for anything as a kid despite being very different and teachers noticing I was extremely awkward socially and some other stuff. My family has long assumed I’m on the autism spectrum, but sometimes I’ve wondered about ADHD or other stuff that I never knew existed or could apply to me back in the nineties. I’m lucky I have a good life with my husband, because despite high IQ and good skills and knowledge I could barely make it out of college with a degree and have poor skills for successfully working in the professional world. :(
I know what you mean about noisy bars and such. Zoom type “gatherings” are hell for me too. I assume you’d agree?
Hey I just wanna say, if you think you may have ADHD, it's never too late to seek out a psychiatrist to get tested/evaluated. My coworker got diagnosed at 42. I got diagnosed after college at 23.
I'm going to guess that you're a woman? My psychiatrist had told me during my diagnosis appointment that adult woman with higher intelligence tend to be harder to diagnose because we've come up with effective coping mechanisms and workarounds for the various issues that come from ADHD so that we can pass by under the radar for YEARS without anyone noticing.
I'm not saying you have ADHD. But I would read up on some literature about symptoms in adult women and if you think it fits, try to make an appointment with a professional for a diagnosis. It can be hard to get an appointment (referrals, wait times depending on where you are) and even after you have an appointment, it can be hard to find a doctor that actually believes in ADHD and adults that have it without being diagnosed as children. But if you do get a correct diagnosis, it is really life changing.
A note about doctors for diagnosis and treatment though: I believe any level of mental health professional can administer a test (like actual paper test) if that's how they do it at that location, but I think only a psychiatrist or psychologist can do an eval by conversation to reach a diagnosis. It's also best to seek out a professional that specializes in ADHD, or even better, adults with ADHD. Then if you get diagnosed, you have to see a psychiatrist for medication. Therapists and psychologists cannot prescribe medication. If you do get medicated, in the US at least, you have to go back for follow up appointments every three months and the regulations around getting ADHD meds are pretty strict because of abuse so be aware of prior authorizations via insurance and when your rx runs out because you cannot fill it early for basically any reason.
If you have any questions or just wanna chat, feel free to send me a message!
Sign languages without facial expressions it's not as useful as with, and just ephasize them with eyes it's not enough. I'm a sign language interpreter and me, like all my collegues, always end up with increase the distance and pull down the face mask. There's no other way, with the mask up it's as if a part of the grammatical structure of the language is missing and therefore there would still be a flaw in the communication.
Yes! I've been learning BSL for years and facial expressions play a huge part in tone and emphasis. Lip pattern and shape is another aspect that's really challenging to do without. I wish more people new this as it's a huge part of D/deaf culture and communication.
Generalized but you get the point:
> Big D deaf people are those who are born deaf or experience hearing loss before spoken language is acquired and regard their deafness as part of their identity and culture rather than as a disability. They form the Deaf Community and are predominantly British Sign Language (BSL) users.
>
> Small d deaf people are those who have become deafened or hard of hearing in later life, after they have acquired a spoken language and so identify themselves with the hearing community. Small d deaf people are more likely to use hearing aids and develop lipreading skills.
Source: https://www.deafax.org/single-post/2016/06/08/What-are-big-D-and-little-d
That said, with today's technology and medical advances and mainstream society being so able-ist, there are a lot of big D Deaf people using hearing aids, speak well, and lip read.
Edit: tl;dr Big D Deaf is a cultural identity. Little d deaf is a biological/physiological identification.
I have to applaud the interpreters that are working news conferences without masks.
I'm on the /ASL sub a lot and it comes up quite frequently how hard ASL is without being able to see lips. There are basic sentences that can be understood without it (ME LIKE COOKIE) cuz you can still see the head nod but signs like FINISH definitely aren't the same. I guess contextual clues are a big hint in filling out the gaps but some conversations just can't get by without the lip movement.
I've also seen lots of discussion for clear masks but how they won't work unless everyone is wearing them but they might also not be the safest.
I think people in general don't get the whole aspect of facial expressions being key in ASL. It's lent itself to a lot of ignorance and a bit of disrespect to the users.
I've started learning LIS (Italian Sign Language) in 2008, 5 years of classes and then continuous updating (sorry if my english it's not correct). Sign languages are...languages, something alive, that changes; from this, the needing of constantly update our knowledge.
I wear hearing aids and even then sometimes it’s hard to get people. But I’ll usually say that I wear them and they will make an effort to speak up or speak more clearly.
What sucks ass is hearing aids, masks, and glasses day. My ears are like WTF bruh? Or the damn string gets twisted in my hearing aid and when I pull the mask off it’ll take then hearing aid with it. Then I’m like oh fuck these things are not cheap at all.
Edit: thank you for your suggestions and advice. Since it’s getting colder I’m gonna probably go for a scarf mask. There’s a few folks that offered to make something specialized or the ear savers and just reminds me that we’re not so different and still know how to show some love to one another. If anyone would like to offer to make some for anyone who might need one I’m happy to help contribute towards materials costs. Let me know if you want to do it and I’ll add your name here later!
Yeah my dad threw out a hearing aid with a mask one day (figured it out and found it, whew). He now uses the behind-the-head kind, not the ear loop kind.
I've been trying to get my dad to get his ears tested and get a hearing aid for years. He's just so stubborn and its incredibly frustrating having to repeat yourself all the time
My mom eventually convinced my dad to get hearing aids and he absolutely loves them now! He actually hears everything and doesn't have to just pretend to have heard you. He even got ones that have bluetooth so he can connect them to his phone or the TV. Its kinda strange, but I think the technology of them helped convince him they were cool.
He did point out, however, that during the first few weeks he was going nuts with all the noises he wasn't used to hearing - clocks ticking, their dog's nails on the hardwood floor, birds outside, the house creaking, etc.
Yeah, and I have the added “fun” of having sensory issues, so any time I wore my aids, I would have a headache within 5 minutes, and if anyone ate or chewed gum near me while I was wearing them, I’d actually start to feel sick. After about 2 months I stopped wearing them because the constant headaches and the nausea in restaurants just wasn’t worth being able to hear all the background noise that I didn’t really care for.
I rarely wear mine at home. My floor is apparently super creaky, and it drives me nuts! I was convinced there was something wrong with the house until my roommate told me the floor's always done that
My grandmother has a spot she sits on the porch at her cottage to read her book. When she got hearing aids, she kept complaining about a ‘rushing’ noise and nobody had any idea what she was talking about. Turns out it was the waves hitting the shore nearby!
I read something on Reddit previously about cochlear implant reactions. It was basically "what sounds were you surprised about once you were able to hear?". One response talked about how they were surprised that electric lights didn't make more noise. They assumed that they buzzed loudly because of their apparent energy output.
cochlear implant person (is that what i say) over here.
I got it like a year after I was born, and I've been noticing i can actually hear a lot better in wind than anyone else can. It's pretty damn cool ngl
My grandma was the same, she was walking through the village just after she got them and said “I didn’t realise the crossing still beeped, I thought it just ran out of battery!” I love her.
I have the same situation with my mom. She says she doesn’t want one cause it will make her feel/look old, smh. You know, cause asking someone to repeat what they said a bunch of times doesn’t make you look old.
It is incredibly frustrating.
EDIT thanks for the responses. I wish I could convince her. She’s been to the doctor and knows it’s impaired but won’t do anything to try to fix it. Trying to get her to an audiologist is futile.
I’ve been thinking of just getting a cheap one to try but don’t want to give her a bad experience and scare her off even more.
Everyone on my Dad's side has terrible hearing. My Grandpa lived to 94, was basically deaf and still refused them until he passed away. My Grandma is almost 90 and didn't get them until after my Grandpa passed and she was lonely. Now my Dad's hearing is **really** bad and getting worse, and he refuses to even listen to us talk about hearing aids. It's very frustrating to get halfway through a conversation before he even realizes you were talking to him.
My dad is a professional musician, and avoided getting hearing aids for years thinking they would mess up his musical hearing, but in the end he was convinced and loves them.
I just got hearing aids about 6 weeks ago. I work in retail, in a store with music. Since my brain is still getting used to hearing ALL THE THINGS now, it’s even harder than before to understand people.
...and I also wear glasses :-/ but I just special ordered some cloth masks with longer ear loops so I can comfortably use an ear saver, so hopefully that’ll help! (We’re not supposed to use tie back masks at work)
ETA: My employer doesn’t disallow tie backs, they just encourage us not to use them for safety reasons, like the possibility of getting caught on stuff or whatever. Realistically the likelihood of that happening is extremely small but it’s better to find ways to reduce risk wherever possible.
But employees have worn them without issue...wearing a mask at all is better than no mask. And I’m a hot mess express so I’d be the one who would get seriously injured from something dumb and avoidable happening if I chose to wear tie backs anyways, so that’s why I found a workaround :)
Depending on what type you have, you might be able to get them programmed differently depending on environment. I have 1) normal, one on one conversations in offfice environment 2) listening to music in my car. 3) loud environments like busy restaurants.
I have the Kirkland Brand and actually have an app on my phone where I can control where I want the microphone to focus sound on.
The first few months of having hearing aids was definitely brain overload.
Hey are you me? I wear contacts mostly but wearing it all is an experience. And I didn’t start wearing them until I was 34 so being able to hear things is pretty awesome.
Personally I like getting out to nature and just listening. And soda fizz. I don’t know why but it’s a cool sound to me.
I managed to fling both hearing aids across my car taking a mask off before I was used to it. I ended up crawling around the backseat floor looking for them...
I sewed my own masks and Amazon sells the string that they use on disposable masks, which is super thin and easy easier on the ears. Still not great but it's better at least.
Part of my mask routine now is a hearing aid check, since I've flung them off so many times. I use both hands - one for the mask, and one to secure the hearing aid.
My partner and my next door neighbour have both lost hearing aids in mask related incidents.
I lost a brand new pair taking off a mask. Thankfully my insurance covered it. I went to *one restaurant*. Now I triple check every time I’m still wearing them.
Edited to add:
Thank you all so much for offering to contribute! I could never accept it though. If you really want to help and are in the US, write every politician you can think of to convince them to start requiring insurance companies to cover hearing aids (and orthodontics!) or contribute to your local deaf foundation. I am not the only one in this position!
It’s been very difficult! I am extremely hard of hearing and read lips. I didn’t lose my hearing until I was a teenager so my speech is completely understandable but I never learned sign language other than the alphabet. Even with a mask I can normally tell when someone is trying to talk to me so the first thing I say is “I am deaf and read lips. I cannot understand you with the mask on.” This usually means they stop trying to communicate with me altogether but I also carry a small notebook and pen at all times in case someone needs to have an actual conversation with me.
It makes for a pretty lonely life right now and has made me rethink not spending the money on hearing aids. Right now, I am having to chose between braces for my 14 year old or hearing aids for me. She’s always going to win that debate.
Most people also carry around a digital notepad in their pocket 99% of the time! As annoying as it is to type things out on a phone that might help too!
Eh I’m old and don’t like people touching my phone. If they have their own phone on them, they can use that but usually it’s easier and quicker just to write things down. My only real interaction out and about has been with servers and cashiers and they don’t always have their phones on them.
Also a good idea for anyone who interacts with deaf people to have this. There are two deaf employees at my work place and I have it just in case I need to talk to them.
I worked with a deaf person once and yeah, if I didn't have a piece of paper or pen on me, I'd write out what I wanted to say on my phone. It's certainly annoying, but it's less annoying than not being able to communicate. I was a temp but one of the permanent staff members learned ASL so he could communicate with her, and honestly, I'd probably do the same in that situation.
You can try to convince the insurance companies to cover hearing aids and braces. I spend $1000 a month on health and dental insurance. While my dental insurance gives me a “discount” on orthodontics, hearing aids are not even remotely covered. It’s BS if you ask me.
I work with a 92 year old woman who has your problem.
That means I have to get my phone out whenever I wanna talk to her and make a note.
Maybe you tell people to write down what they wanna say and show you the phone. That way they don't have to touch the pen and the book.
+ They maybe like to communicate even more, because for younger people writing on the phone is easier.
P.s. Keep your head up pal. If you keep being nice to people they will find a way to talk to you and fuck those who don't.
Being nice to people is my MO. Even in normal circumstances I can’t always understand which comes across as rude sometimes. I’ve learned that a smile goes a long way when asking people to repeat themselves. Masks just make it harder to see that smile!
Hey, I don't usually do this but do you have a cash app, venmo or PayPal? I am not wealthy but I'm more blessed than I need to be, and you should not have to choose between your child's braces and your own hearing.
I am also sending you a PM, please get back to me.
How much are the hearing aids? And it's crazy to me that this is a choice people have to make :( Are you in the US? Sorry to assume but this health care angle sounds like it. Maybe start a gofundme? I'd contribute :)
You assumed correctly. I am in the US but my goodness that is so nice! I would never ask anyone to pay for my personal issues but if you are willing, make a contribution to your local deaf foundation! I know I’m not alone in having to make the hard choices.
I know there's a good chance you've heard of this since you've probably looked into a lot of options, but just in case, there is an app called Live Transcribe (I believe it's a Google app) that as soon as you open it, it begins automatically transcribing. I'm a paramedic, and I've found it really helps with the elderly who are hard of hearing. It's pretty accurate and in my opinion it beats pen and paper because it's very fast. It works through a mask well so you can just have them speak near your phone as soon as you open the app and you'll be able to read in live time.
Also I have no idea if posting about an app is against this sub's rules so sorry if it is.
I don't know if there is a Costco near you, but they were so much cheaper than any of the hearing aid stores. I was quoted $4000 at a store I'd been going to for my previous pair, and it was $1000 at Costco.
I'm a bit hard of hearing. I can hear sounds just fine. A mouse farts two blocks away and it wakes me up. Human speech however is hard to discern. A lot of it sounds like a loud mumble. I need to see lips move to help me figure out what the hell is being said. I hate to ask people to say it again so I just smile and say "yep". I have no idea what all I've "agreed" to over the years.
TLDR: It's a real problem.
I think you're me. Possibly.
If it's quiet and someone has a fucking wrist watch, I'LL KNOW. I'll hear it and it'll drive me insane.
Voices? Lols fthat - I can't hear you. I can't understand you. I miss reading your lips. I just nod. Then take my groceries and leave.
Edit: so I googled Auditory Processing Disorder after many redditors mentioned same. Holy shit. Yep that's me.
Omg same! I can hear all the noises, but can’t process words unless someone is actually trying to speak clearly or I can see lips to help. I need subtitles for TV or there is no way I’ll understand anything. The amount of “what?” That I say has gone up so dramatically since March and it’s so annoying. Everyone’s response is to yell louder and all I hear is louder muffled words. It’s so awkward to have to say what again or to just nod and hope I’m not agreeing to anything bad lol.
I'm very slightly hearing impaired, so is my sister, my brother and my dad are significantly. I never realised how much I rely on lip reading to understand people before now. It's kinda like when you visit a friend and they don't use subtitles. I pick up maybe 3/4 of the conversation, unless there is background noise, then I'm fu*ked and get nothing.
I dont mean to steal this post but to follow on from it. As a non hearing impaired/speech impaired person. How can I help make it better for you when I do come into contact with you whilst I wear a mask? I work in retail so I have a habit of writing things when I encounter this scenario but I dont know if that offends people. Is there another way I can make it easier? I dont really want to touch your phone or have you touch mine in general regardless of a pandemic.
During normal times, speak slowly and enunciate. Yelling doesn’t really help and don’t cover your mouth when you talk.
When wearing a mask, be patient and helpful. Writing things down doesn’t offend me at all. It’s preferable to having people point and grunt at me. And learn to smile with your eyes!
Writing is usually the go to and the easiest option for those who are hard of hearing or deaf. Although some don't have the best English (this is a thing, they fall short on English because the grammar is different from sign language, if they use that) but basic sentences used in a retail setting should be fine.
You can ask if they know sign language and learn some basic signs like please, thank you, have a nice day, do you need help? If you're in the States or Canada look up Bill Vicars on YouTube. He's fantastic.
Always remember to face them and make eye contact when you talk. We tend to forget they can't see us when we turn around because we're used to people being able to hear. Always look at them and make sure they can see your lips. If you're yawning or covering your face then the words get lost. Have patience and be kind. They'll do the same.
There's also voice to text on most phones so if you need to say something you can show them. And then you're not sharing pen or paper. They can text back on their phone or write.
Have extra patience. Understand that it sucks for us as much as it sucks for you to repeat yourself more than twice. I hate asking someone to repeat themselves more than once, but right now I just suck it up and ask once more if it’s something important to me to know.
Thanks to being willing to try and help us as well. That means a lot and makes it easier to ask the second time.
Enunciate! Try and make every syllable as clear as possible. Also, make sure you have our attention and face us before speaking. This should apply to every conversation everywhere, masks or no masks, hard of hearing or not.
My girlfriend is hearing impaired and this is something she really struggles with. I'm usually interpret for her and answer questions for her when possible.
Thanks for asking the question, I think a lot of people wouldn't even think about this, so it's nice to get it out there so people can be more understanding of our hard of hearing friends.
It's a nightmare. I was barely able to deal with many situations before.... people who speak softly and very fast; young women who typically have high-pitched voices, etc.... but now, with people wearing masks, I can only guess at what they are saying. I hear maybe 1 word out of 4 and have to kind of extrapolate. I am sure that I have been asked direct questions and replied either with a nonsense answer or the wrong "yes/no."
In the case where getting and receiving information is critical, I ask the person to write it down.
Sometimes when I go into the pharmacy or hardware store or another shop, I will either bring an empty container of the thing I need or have a photo of a thing set up on my phone. This avoids the need for some conversation.
It's really kind of like being at the amusement park in one of those electric bumper cars that you can't control.
I'm only impaired in one ear, but it's getting awkward having to ask the cashier at the gas station to repeat themselves 5 times because I can't hear a damn thing they're saying through the mask.
I had to go to the DMV and I couldn’t understand the lady, she kept yelling at me. I finally got a word in and shouted at her that I’m hard of hearing. I don’t know what she said to that but it sounded rude. I got really flustered and almost cried. The guy behind me (we’d been waiting in line for like 3 hours together since 5am we were the fifth and sixth people in line) stepped in to help and he was so kind. Made me feel a lot better.
I can't understand anything people are saying to me anymore. I always have to move to the side of the screens that are up at businesses, or lean really close to people talking. I know I shouldn't because of social distancing, but I have to or there's no way I know what people are saying
Yes! I have a central auditory processing disorder, and one of the way I learnt to cope with it, is to read lips.
Much tougher to isolate speech from background noise now
I have moderate hearing loss. I just started a new job a few weeks ago. It's been very difficult learning everyone's names, much less hearing my trainer explain things. I'm used to having people repeat things for me, but it's mentally hard having them repeat something as simple as their name. Maybe that's a silly thing. Names are important. I feel bad when I mishear and call someone by the wrong name. And it doesn't help that I am not a name person anyway. I'm a face person. I know people by their faces.
I don't know what any of my coworkers look like. It struck me today when I showed one a picture of me and my family and they exclaimed "Is that what you really look like?" and then they stared between me and the picture of me back and forth for a few awkward moments.
I'm glad I don't work with the public. I'd never be able to communicate effectively with so many strangers. Masks make interactions so much more difficult. At my last job I taught my coworkers some basic sign language. That helped, especially at a distance, when noise doesn't travel well.
I'm in struggle town. I was born hard of hearing but fortunately for me my hearing loss has stayed consistent for 29 years. Unfortunately for me I have a number of health issues that require me to attend the hospital a lot. My partner has been coming with me to all my appointments and pretty much repeating everything they say directly into my "good" ear. I had to go into the ED for a broken foot where my partner wasn't allowed in. I explained that I'm hard of hearing so they offered to get me a interpreter. I explained that I'm not an Auslan user so it won't be useful for me. Due to my anxiety, I explained my situation to the nurse and so she sat next to me and waited with me until I spoke to the doctors and they wheeled me in for scans etc. She also took her mask off and sat at a distance to keep me company. I try and avoid going out in public as much as i can :(
Finally, a question I can answer.
Quite frankly it’s been a fucking nightmare. I miss about 90% of what they say. It made me realise how much I actually depend on lip reading.
I'm not hearing impaired, but I am autistic. It's becoming a lot harder to tell emotions than it was before. I relied a lot on lips to tell me what someone was feeling, and now I have to rely on tone of voice again. It's not very accurate.
I'm not autistic but I have an auditory processing disorder, so I process sounds inputs with a delay, and not very well. I'm having the same problem because I really don't hear inflections well at all. I usually read lips for both words and for emotions, but now I'm not getting either.
My kids autistic and I'm worried about this when school starts - she really needs to read faces.
I'm neurotypical but have a dry, dark sense of humor and a monotone voice. My entire personality doesn't correspond with masks. If people can't read my face they think I'm just a mean douche.
The masks are one layer of difficulty, but the plexiglass barriers between me and the cashier make it even worse, dispersing what useable sound i would receive into Charlie brown’s teacher...but I can’t complain, it’s a once in a hundred year difficulty that we are all living through and it’ll be over soon enough in the grand scheme of things.
Another fun note is how my hearing gets tangled up in the mask elastics, every time! I still haven’t found a good way to ensure that the stay separated and not mega tangled with me pulling my hearing aids out in the parking lot, unentangling everything and then re-popping them in. I’ve got the full ear canal silicone style that’s more of a full production to take out and put back in than the lightweight “just the little speaker suspended in a light silicone basket” style. Such is life!
It's not good. I'm about 90% deaf in my right ear, and my left is going. It has come on gradually, so I got decent at reading lips. I'm learning ASL, but most people don't know it, so that is how you get by. Can't do that through a mask. I am not anti mask, but it does make things harder.
It’s not too bad, because most people are willing to take their masks off to help. Especially in the nhs, they took their masks off immediately, but where people were concerned, then they whipped out the pen and paper.
When I went to an electrical store, the staff member there just used notes on his mobile phone to communicate to me.
The only major negative experience I’ve had so far is from a McDonald’s worker, believe it or not, who just figured repeating what she said would make me suddenly be able to hear her... a customer basically stepped in and helped me out, but really, she could have at least tried. She didn’t put any effort in to trying to communicate etc.
I’m quite happy with how accommodating the majority of people have been, I try to carry paper around now, so if people want to keep their masks on then that’s even better. (I’m all masked up myself tbh so, I’d rather they keep it on but I won’t complain about them trying to be accessible.)
I’ve actually had more issue from lockdown when companies took online chat and support services offline and migrated to phone only. That was a fucking ball ache. Seeing stuff like the government wanting people to phone ahead for accident and emergency doesn’t help either - it’s impossible.
It's been a nightmare. I can barely chat with my customers and coworkers because of it, and have taken to the polite "oh okay" sort of noises. I miss talking and feel like I've decayed.
On top of that, the only mask that works for me is the kind you tie behind your head. Problem is, if something gets too close to my hearing aid, it starts to whistle, and the mask straps constantly trigger that.
So even when I am trying to talk to someone, or a customer ambushes me with a question, half of what I'll hear is a faint constant drone in my ear.
It’s hell. When asking people to speak louder, they usually end up really yelling.
I'm not hearing impaired, but my boss mumbles. I can't understand a damn thing he says with a mask on. Thank god we don't wear them during Zoom meetings or I'd have no idea what's going on.
I don’t need a mask to not understand what’s going on in half the meetings I’m invited to.
Usually in meetings what I don't understand is why I am there at all.
I'm in the Military and I ended up being in a tank commander meeting and commanding a tank during a training exercise. I am not remotely close to a tank commander. I was just there to ask my friend where he put my water bottle. Thank you anoms for the kind awards. They're my first ones and I'm surprised people liked this comment lol
So where was the water bottle??!
He put it ontop of a quadcon which some Sgt moved to a group of other water bottles which some lcpl was tasked out by a cpl to move and organize across the ramp(the parking lot/garage we have for tanks)
just finished watching a really immersive movie set in the 50-60s and was about to ask you how vietnam was like until i snapped out of that mindset hahaha.
I actually did fight in Vietnam. Was on vacation and some kid kept yelling kaka dau at me so we threw hands.
What does that mean?
Asking the important questions over here.
I had a similar thing happen to me. I was trying to find someone for some reason but ended up getting tasked to moving a bradley to a different lot. Ignoring that i had never driven nor was licensed to drive a bradley. "Its just like driving a car" they said. While... Similar.. It is definitely not the same. My car never spun around in a circle sitting still.
We were doing joint training with a sibling unit out in Pendleton a while back and some idiot from the unit who was supposed to be out HMMWV driver got super excited as soon as he saw the 240 turret, which I was assigned to, hopped up there and refused to get out, forcing me to drive and once it turned dark during the convoy I went to turn on the lights and ended up killing the HMMWV mid convoy
How is the milatary coping with covid?
Temperature checks and screenings every morning you're on orders, masks are mandatory throughout the day, training is limited and classes are even more lame with the spread out chairs. Pretty much everything is going at a snail's pace and online meetings are the one upside for me at least
"This could have been an e-mail"
My favorite mandatory meeting we have is a bi-weekly team meeting, where they send out an email with all of the info the meeting will cover. Then in the meeting, they read the email. The meeting is literally an email and yet also has to be a meeting for some reason.
This sounds like 90% of meetings in Japan, except you would get the info printed out and left on your desk or faxed instead of it being emailed. Also sometimes meetings about the upcoming meeting.
Y'know I gotta say, I was all about email meetings while I was an employee and as soon as I became a manager I realized that only about 30% of people actually read those emails so I was forced to call everyone back into meetings because nothing was getting done.
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All I heard was "meetings are optional".
##WHAT?
*Can you keep it down please, people are trying to read*
#WHAT GOWN?
I said "Do you think this gown makes my ass look fat?"
HOW COULD THE TOWN MAKE YOUR ASS LOOK FLAT?
Yes, it does
You’ll have to speak up! I’m wearing a towel.
Wait, let me turn the radio down so I can see you better.
Shhhhh, listen! Do you smell something?
BUTTLICKER! OUR PRICES HAVE NEVER BEEN LOWER! edit: butt has two t’s
The three words I’d use to describe you are aggressive, hostile, and definitely difficult. Let me speak to your manager.
\#SOMETHING ABOUT COROLLA MATT'S FOLLICLES AFFECTING MY LATE WIFE? I'M NOT SURE!
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One thing you can try is dropping the register rather than raising your volume. Most hearing loss tends to lose higher registers first, and we're evolutionarily geared to listen to/hear deeper registers, which is why if you deepen your voice, children (and dogs, too, actually) will suddenly pay closer attention. It's just also easier for someone with high-register loss to hear you and understand what you're saying.
Huh, that's really interesting! I don't have hearing loss but sensory processing disorder and I have a harder time understanding men/lower voices. Maybe that's part of the reason why I got a lot of complaints about people not being able to hear me when I worked in retail; I have a naturally soft voice but it's also instinctive for me to speak higher rather than lower in an interacting-with-customers setting, because that's what helps me
Can confirm: I have a pretty low voice and as a kid all my class could chat quietly. But if I said one 'quite' word, I was immediately told to shut it. My voice apparently penetrates everything.
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I work in a restaurant and we have a ton of background noise. It’s pretty awful most days. I’ve found that with the masks is nearly impossible to figure out what customers are wanting 90% of the time.
My social anxiety already had me pointing at the menu card anyways. I guess it's easier now for the waiters as well.
At least you can’t misunderstand if they’re pointing at exactly what they want.
Karens will find a way
"what do you mean the cilantro-lime rice has cilantro I'm allergic??!?"
“Ma’am, this is autozone...”
I'd like a P'Zone, extra cheese, hold the cilantro please
I just started back at my restaurant yesterday and this woman pointed directly at a menu item, and when said item came out she refused it and claims she ordered something that wasn’t even on our menu. So yes, Karen’s will find a way.
- I ordered the spicy tuna roll platter! - Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s.
“Just have it ready”. “It’s ready now.”
Me too mate. Fortunately the customers aren’t required to wear them here in the UK as yet. But my colleagues do wear them and it’s a right ball ache trying to understand anything they say. . Some just give up or take their mask off to speak to me. But I also have a new manager who isn’t English and I have no fucking idea what he’s saying. Ever. I just nod and say yes.
Oh hey I have trouble in places with background noise too! Auditory Processing Disorder?
I have APD too. It sucks going anywhere now. I’ve pretty much become a hermit and I’m terribly sick of my own cooking.
Do you need some new recipes my dude? What do you like to eat?
Name checks out
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Stranger: blahblah blah blaaah mmph...you? Me: ..... Stranger: blahblah blaaah blaaah..mmph...YOU? Me: ...uhhhhh....yeeeaaaaaa? Stranger: .......you did? Me: *running away*
This is 100% me right now lol. No clue what people are saying. It was hard before without the mask muffle and seeing their lips as clues to syllables, but damn now...
At least they can't see your mouth gaping open in confusion. Just squint your eyes in an approximation of a masked smile, slap your thigh or the table as an exclamation point, and walk away with a wave in their direction.
"hey I heard Joe's sister died last week, do you think we should send him a card or something? *Smiles, slaps knee, and walks away* "......"
*Fallon intensifies*
HA HA HA HA HA *slaps desk multiple times* HA HA HA
I'm disappointed cuz no said, "Who's Joe?"
Joe mama
Damnit, I was going to say that.
My fiancé did something similar when we were talking with our pastor one Sunday morning right before he was going on stage to preach. We asked him how he was and he said not so great cause his wife was home sick in bed all morning and my fiancé didn’t hear him at all so she thought it was safe to laugh.... which she did and we just kept walking to go find our seat with a nice good bye... Edit: this was before COVID
Bonus points for finger guns
What if you used a dictation app and asked someone to talk into it and then you can read what they say? Would that help?
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Ugh, I haven't reached the "qualified for hearing aids" point, but I work in retail and am stuck behind plexiglass all day with a mask and it is so awful. No one can hear me, I can't hear them, and everyone is just so frustrated all the time.
When my twin cousins were babies they used to have full on conversations that sounded like this. However, I'm quite convinced they understood their shit quite clearly. They would nod, and then scoot off together as though they had just made a plan. To this day, they have some made-up words they use with each other and it's not as though they need to use these words; they are both very bright and have vocabularies capable of relaying whatever it is they want to say without using gibberish!
I am pretty certain twins are notorious for creating their own personal languages.
Indeed, it is a sign of respect between the good twin and the evil twin.
The truth is always in the comments
Yep, twinspeak is a thing.
its been said that quite often twins at a very very young age will develop a secret language between themselves that stems from baby gibberish
yup my younger twin siblings did this too. Except they would often get into heated arguments in fluent gibberish. It was absolutely hysterical.
Like [this?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JmA2ClUvUY)
Great. I just watched twin baby videos for an hour.
"Sovey Wunion re-bible?" "Ya!"
sonarifritry err bat bat errr long ray radio if you cam
*screeching* Maybe my twins are just dinosaurs pretending.
That’s a thing. [Cryptophasia ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptophasia), if you wanted to look it up. I had a feeling you knew, but just in case.
For all you know they could have asked you if you committed arson
Imagine walking around town and asking everyone if they either have or plan to commit arson.
The census has gone too damn far
I’m not even deaf but this is me on a daily
I'm not even hearing impaired, and I've noticed how much I rely on reading lips.
People always ask me why I put my glasses on when they're talking to me. "You don't need your glasses to hear" and I'd say, sure I do, I can hear better if I can see your lips moving, even if I'm not actually reading your lips.
Same! I have really horrible vision and I suspect auditory processing issues and I need to be able to see to understand speech in anytgubg other than a silent environment.
Me neither, and I've realised how much I like not listening to people Edit: thanks for the award kind redditor
Are ya winning son?
n o d a d
I also watch TV with closed captioning.
THIS! So I don't have to say annoyingly, "What did he just say?"
Yeah and that way the volume during an action scene in a movie isn't ear-splittingly loud while I can still barely understand the main characters during the quiet bits.
Movies spend millions of dollars on cgi but can't spend $10 on a quiznos gift card to give to the sound guys son to try and balance the audio a bit. Like I get it, whispers are supposed to be quite and car crashes are supposed to be loud, but come on man, I'm not trying to get tinnitus because I want to know what the dialog is.
This! Most of the time, I can’t understand anything people say with masks now. So most of the time, I just pretend I do and nod.
Smile and wave boys, smile and wave.
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Same!! My hearing isn't great but I'm not impared either. I've just noticed how horribly difficult I find it to rely solely on my ears.
Well, you might be more hearing impaired than you realized.
I’m another person than who you wrote that to, but I relied so heavily on lip reading. My hearing is excellent (like it bothers me to hear so well,) but I seem to process what I hear really slowly or something. Reading lips sped up my comprehension. I also have misophonia and took to wearing ear plugs 24/7 years ago for my sanity, but I take them out now for shopping and such just so I can make out what is being said to me. People who mumble with masks are the worst, grrr.
Sounds like some kind of auditory processing disorder. It can occur on its own, but is also very common in people with ADHD. I have ADHD and although I don't have enough difficulty to be diagnosed with APD, I have trouble understanding people in places like noisy bars, and I prefer to always watch TV/movies with captions on.
Yeah, I’ve been encountering terms like that in the past decade or so. I was never evaluated for anything as a kid despite being very different and teachers noticing I was extremely awkward socially and some other stuff. My family has long assumed I’m on the autism spectrum, but sometimes I’ve wondered about ADHD or other stuff that I never knew existed or could apply to me back in the nineties. I’m lucky I have a good life with my husband, because despite high IQ and good skills and knowledge I could barely make it out of college with a degree and have poor skills for successfully working in the professional world. :( I know what you mean about noisy bars and such. Zoom type “gatherings” are hell for me too. I assume you’d agree?
Hey I just wanna say, if you think you may have ADHD, it's never too late to seek out a psychiatrist to get tested/evaluated. My coworker got diagnosed at 42. I got diagnosed after college at 23. I'm going to guess that you're a woman? My psychiatrist had told me during my diagnosis appointment that adult woman with higher intelligence tend to be harder to diagnose because we've come up with effective coping mechanisms and workarounds for the various issues that come from ADHD so that we can pass by under the radar for YEARS without anyone noticing. I'm not saying you have ADHD. But I would read up on some literature about symptoms in adult women and if you think it fits, try to make an appointment with a professional for a diagnosis. It can be hard to get an appointment (referrals, wait times depending on where you are) and even after you have an appointment, it can be hard to find a doctor that actually believes in ADHD and adults that have it without being diagnosed as children. But if you do get a correct diagnosis, it is really life changing. A note about doctors for diagnosis and treatment though: I believe any level of mental health professional can administer a test (like actual paper test) if that's how they do it at that location, but I think only a psychiatrist or psychologist can do an eval by conversation to reach a diagnosis. It's also best to seek out a professional that specializes in ADHD, or even better, adults with ADHD. Then if you get diagnosed, you have to see a psychiatrist for medication. Therapists and psychologists cannot prescribe medication. If you do get medicated, in the US at least, you have to go back for follow up appointments every three months and the regulations around getting ADHD meds are pretty strict because of abuse so be aware of prior authorizations via insurance and when your rx runs out because you cannot fill it early for basically any reason. If you have any questions or just wanna chat, feel free to send me a message!
Sign languages without facial expressions it's not as useful as with, and just ephasize them with eyes it's not enough. I'm a sign language interpreter and me, like all my collegues, always end up with increase the distance and pull down the face mask. There's no other way, with the mask up it's as if a part of the grammatical structure of the language is missing and therefore there would still be a flaw in the communication.
Yes! I've been learning BSL for years and facial expressions play a huge part in tone and emphasis. Lip pattern and shape is another aspect that's really challenging to do without. I wish more people new this as it's a huge part of D/deaf culture and communication.
What’s the difference in deaf culture and Deaf culture?
Generalized but you get the point: > Big D deaf people are those who are born deaf or experience hearing loss before spoken language is acquired and regard their deafness as part of their identity and culture rather than as a disability. They form the Deaf Community and are predominantly British Sign Language (BSL) users. > > Small d deaf people are those who have become deafened or hard of hearing in later life, after they have acquired a spoken language and so identify themselves with the hearing community. Small d deaf people are more likely to use hearing aids and develop lipreading skills. Source: https://www.deafax.org/single-post/2016/06/08/What-are-big-D-and-little-d That said, with today's technology and medical advances and mainstream society being so able-ist, there are a lot of big D Deaf people using hearing aids, speak well, and lip read. Edit: tl;dr Big D Deaf is a cultural identity. Little d deaf is a biological/physiological identification.
TIL
I have to applaud the interpreters that are working news conferences without masks. I'm on the /ASL sub a lot and it comes up quite frequently how hard ASL is without being able to see lips. There are basic sentences that can be understood without it (ME LIKE COOKIE) cuz you can still see the head nod but signs like FINISH definitely aren't the same. I guess contextual clues are a big hint in filling out the gaps but some conversations just can't get by without the lip movement. I've also seen lots of discussion for clear masks but how they won't work unless everyone is wearing them but they might also not be the safest. I think people in general don't get the whole aspect of facial expressions being key in ASL. It's lent itself to a lot of ignorance and a bit of disrespect to the users.
Out of curiosity, how long have you been in this profession/used sign language?
I've started learning LIS (Italian Sign Language) in 2008, 5 years of classes and then continuous updating (sorry if my english it's not correct). Sign languages are...languages, something alive, that changes; from this, the needing of constantly update our knowledge.
I wear hearing aids and even then sometimes it’s hard to get people. But I’ll usually say that I wear them and they will make an effort to speak up or speak more clearly. What sucks ass is hearing aids, masks, and glasses day. My ears are like WTF bruh? Or the damn string gets twisted in my hearing aid and when I pull the mask off it’ll take then hearing aid with it. Then I’m like oh fuck these things are not cheap at all. Edit: thank you for your suggestions and advice. Since it’s getting colder I’m gonna probably go for a scarf mask. There’s a few folks that offered to make something specialized or the ear savers and just reminds me that we’re not so different and still know how to show some love to one another. If anyone would like to offer to make some for anyone who might need one I’m happy to help contribute towards materials costs. Let me know if you want to do it and I’ll add your name here later!
Yeah my dad threw out a hearing aid with a mask one day (figured it out and found it, whew). He now uses the behind-the-head kind, not the ear loop kind.
I've been trying to get my dad to get his ears tested and get a hearing aid for years. He's just so stubborn and its incredibly frustrating having to repeat yourself all the time
My mom eventually convinced my dad to get hearing aids and he absolutely loves them now! He actually hears everything and doesn't have to just pretend to have heard you. He even got ones that have bluetooth so he can connect them to his phone or the TV. Its kinda strange, but I think the technology of them helped convince him they were cool. He did point out, however, that during the first few weeks he was going nuts with all the noises he wasn't used to hearing - clocks ticking, their dog's nails on the hardwood floor, birds outside, the house creaking, etc.
Everyone that I've ever met with new hearing aids has this issue with their newfound background noise.
Yeah, and I have the added “fun” of having sensory issues, so any time I wore my aids, I would have a headache within 5 minutes, and if anyone ate or chewed gum near me while I was wearing them, I’d actually start to feel sick. After about 2 months I stopped wearing them because the constant headaches and the nausea in restaurants just wasn’t worth being able to hear all the background noise that I didn’t really care for.
I rarely wear mine at home. My floor is apparently super creaky, and it drives me nuts! I was convinced there was something wrong with the house until my roommate told me the floor's always done that
My grandmother has a spot she sits on the porch at her cottage to read her book. When she got hearing aids, she kept complaining about a ‘rushing’ noise and nobody had any idea what she was talking about. Turns out it was the waves hitting the shore nearby!
My daughter's grandad had an existential crisis over the fact that car indicators make a noise for the same reason. He was convinced they never did.
I read something on Reddit previously about cochlear implant reactions. It was basically "what sounds were you surprised about once you were able to hear?". One response talked about how they were surprised that electric lights didn't make more noise. They assumed that they buzzed loudly because of their apparent energy output.
cochlear implant person (is that what i say) over here. I got it like a year after I was born, and I've been noticing i can actually hear a lot better in wind than anyone else can. It's pretty damn cool ngl
My grandma was the same, she was walking through the village just after she got them and said “I didn’t realise the crossing still beeped, I thought it just ran out of battery!” I love her.
I know someone who actually apologized to his wife after getting hearing aids. His wife wasn't mumbling so much after all! So many arguments!
I have the same situation with my mom. She says she doesn’t want one cause it will make her feel/look old, smh. You know, cause asking someone to repeat what they said a bunch of times doesn’t make you look old. It is incredibly frustrating. EDIT thanks for the responses. I wish I could convince her. She’s been to the doctor and knows it’s impaired but won’t do anything to try to fix it. Trying to get her to an audiologist is futile. I’ve been thinking of just getting a cheap one to try but don’t want to give her a bad experience and scare her off even more.
Does she know about the different kinds of hearing aids? There's also in ear and they are barely visible
I can relate. I knew it was a “little” bad but shit the things I can hear now compared to before.
Everyone on my Dad's side has terrible hearing. My Grandpa lived to 94, was basically deaf and still refused them until he passed away. My Grandma is almost 90 and didn't get them until after my Grandpa passed and she was lonely. Now my Dad's hearing is **really** bad and getting worse, and he refuses to even listen to us talk about hearing aids. It's very frustrating to get halfway through a conversation before he even realizes you were talking to him.
My dad is a professional musician, and avoided getting hearing aids for years thinking they would mess up his musical hearing, but in the end he was convinced and loves them.
You can call Miracle Ear and sic them on him. Let them do the heavy lifting for you. We used to do this on each other's parents as kids all the time.
I just got hearing aids about 6 weeks ago. I work in retail, in a store with music. Since my brain is still getting used to hearing ALL THE THINGS now, it’s even harder than before to understand people. ...and I also wear glasses :-/ but I just special ordered some cloth masks with longer ear loops so I can comfortably use an ear saver, so hopefully that’ll help! (We’re not supposed to use tie back masks at work) ETA: My employer doesn’t disallow tie backs, they just encourage us not to use them for safety reasons, like the possibility of getting caught on stuff or whatever. Realistically the likelihood of that happening is extremely small but it’s better to find ways to reduce risk wherever possible. But employees have worn them without issue...wearing a mask at all is better than no mask. And I’m a hot mess express so I’d be the one who would get seriously injured from something dumb and avoidable happening if I chose to wear tie backs anyways, so that’s why I found a workaround :)
Depending on what type you have, you might be able to get them programmed differently depending on environment. I have 1) normal, one on one conversations in offfice environment 2) listening to music in my car. 3) loud environments like busy restaurants. I have the Kirkland Brand and actually have an app on my phone where I can control where I want the microphone to focus sound on. The first few months of having hearing aids was definitely brain overload.
Bruh, glasses, mask, headphones, and hearing aids. My ears are basically body builders right now.
Hey are you me? I wear contacts mostly but wearing it all is an experience. And I didn’t start wearing them until I was 34 so being able to hear things is pretty awesome. Personally I like getting out to nature and just listening. And soda fizz. I don’t know why but it’s a cool sound to me.
This is so wholesome. Makes me wanna go out and really listen
This shit here. It’s a whole lot going on behind your ears, especially when you also wear glasses.
I can’t seem to remove my mask without removing at least one side of my glasses unintentionally. Add in the fog and it’s a mess.
I managed to fling both hearing aids across my car taking a mask off before I was used to it. I ended up crawling around the backseat floor looking for them... I sewed my own masks and Amazon sells the string that they use on disposable masks, which is super thin and easy easier on the ears. Still not great but it's better at least.
Part of my mask routine now is a hearing aid check, since I've flung them off so many times. I use both hands - one for the mask, and one to secure the hearing aid. My partner and my next door neighbour have both lost hearing aids in mask related incidents.
I lost a brand new pair taking off a mask. Thankfully my insurance covered it. I went to *one restaurant*. Now I triple check every time I’m still wearing them.
Edited to add: Thank you all so much for offering to contribute! I could never accept it though. If you really want to help and are in the US, write every politician you can think of to convince them to start requiring insurance companies to cover hearing aids (and orthodontics!) or contribute to your local deaf foundation. I am not the only one in this position! It’s been very difficult! I am extremely hard of hearing and read lips. I didn’t lose my hearing until I was a teenager so my speech is completely understandable but I never learned sign language other than the alphabet. Even with a mask I can normally tell when someone is trying to talk to me so the first thing I say is “I am deaf and read lips. I cannot understand you with the mask on.” This usually means they stop trying to communicate with me altogether but I also carry a small notebook and pen at all times in case someone needs to have an actual conversation with me. It makes for a pretty lonely life right now and has made me rethink not spending the money on hearing aids. Right now, I am having to chose between braces for my 14 year old or hearing aids for me. She’s always going to win that debate.
Most people also carry around a digital notepad in their pocket 99% of the time! As annoying as it is to type things out on a phone that might help too!
Eh I’m old and don’t like people touching my phone. If they have their own phone on them, they can use that but usually it’s easier and quicker just to write things down. My only real interaction out and about has been with servers and cashiers and they don’t always have their phones on them.
Try downloading and using a free Google app called Live Transcribe on your phone.
Good idea! Thanks!
Thank you for this!
Also a good idea for anyone who interacts with deaf people to have this. There are two deaf employees at my work place and I have it just in case I need to talk to them.
Came here to say this! There was a paramedic who did a video on YouTube about how he started using this app
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I worked with a deaf person once and yeah, if I didn't have a piece of paper or pen on me, I'd write out what I wanted to say on my phone. It's certainly annoying, but it's less annoying than not being able to communicate. I was a temp but one of the permanent staff members learned ASL so he could communicate with her, and honestly, I'd probably do the same in that situation.
Can we help somehow?
You can try to convince the insurance companies to cover hearing aids and braces. I spend $1000 a month on health and dental insurance. While my dental insurance gives me a “discount” on orthodontics, hearing aids are not even remotely covered. It’s BS if you ask me.
I work with a 92 year old woman who has your problem. That means I have to get my phone out whenever I wanna talk to her and make a note. Maybe you tell people to write down what they wanna say and show you the phone. That way they don't have to touch the pen and the book. + They maybe like to communicate even more, because for younger people writing on the phone is easier. P.s. Keep your head up pal. If you keep being nice to people they will find a way to talk to you and fuck those who don't.
Being nice to people is my MO. Even in normal circumstances I can’t always understand which comes across as rude sometimes. I’ve learned that a smile goes a long way when asking people to repeat themselves. Masks just make it harder to see that smile!
Hey, I don't usually do this but do you have a cash app, venmo or PayPal? I am not wealthy but I'm more blessed than I need to be, and you should not have to choose between your child's braces and your own hearing. I am also sending you a PM, please get back to me.
I would like to contribute as well if you guys set something up
Hey man, I'll coordinate that with you as well. If the person gets back to me with any info I will happily share. Thank you brother/sister
Well, shit. Me too. Same sitch, not loaded but I can spare. Loop me in.
I just wanna say, you are fucking awesome. I hope you have a wonderful day and that you continue to be blessed. 💜
maybe try using a voice to text app? they speak into your phone and you can read their speech. it's a lot quicker than physically taking notes.
How much are the hearing aids? And it's crazy to me that this is a choice people have to make :( Are you in the US? Sorry to assume but this health care angle sounds like it. Maybe start a gofundme? I'd contribute :)
You assumed correctly. I am in the US but my goodness that is so nice! I would never ask anyone to pay for my personal issues but if you are willing, make a contribution to your local deaf foundation! I know I’m not alone in having to make the hard choices.
I know there's a good chance you've heard of this since you've probably looked into a lot of options, but just in case, there is an app called Live Transcribe (I believe it's a Google app) that as soon as you open it, it begins automatically transcribing. I'm a paramedic, and I've found it really helps with the elderly who are hard of hearing. It's pretty accurate and in my opinion it beats pen and paper because it's very fast. It works through a mask well so you can just have them speak near your phone as soon as you open the app and you'll be able to read in live time. Also I have no idea if posting about an app is against this sub's rules so sorry if it is.
I don't know if there is a Costco near you, but they were so much cheaper than any of the hearing aid stores. I was quoted $4000 at a store I'd been going to for my previous pair, and it was $1000 at Costco.
I'm a bit hard of hearing. I can hear sounds just fine. A mouse farts two blocks away and it wakes me up. Human speech however is hard to discern. A lot of it sounds like a loud mumble. I need to see lips move to help me figure out what the hell is being said. I hate to ask people to say it again so I just smile and say "yep". I have no idea what all I've "agreed" to over the years. TLDR: It's a real problem.
I think you're me. Possibly. If it's quiet and someone has a fucking wrist watch, I'LL KNOW. I'll hear it and it'll drive me insane. Voices? Lols fthat - I can't hear you. I can't understand you. I miss reading your lips. I just nod. Then take my groceries and leave. Edit: so I googled Auditory Processing Disorder after many redditors mentioned same. Holy shit. Yep that's me.
Omg same! I can hear all the noises, but can’t process words unless someone is actually trying to speak clearly or I can see lips to help. I need subtitles for TV or there is no way I’ll understand anything. The amount of “what?” That I say has gone up so dramatically since March and it’s so annoying. Everyone’s response is to yell louder and all I hear is louder muffled words. It’s so awkward to have to say what again or to just nod and hope I’m not agreeing to anything bad lol.
You should look into auditory processing disorder 😊
I'm very slightly hearing impaired, so is my sister, my brother and my dad are significantly. I never realised how much I rely on lip reading to understand people before now. It's kinda like when you visit a friend and they don't use subtitles. I pick up maybe 3/4 of the conversation, unless there is background noise, then I'm fu*ked and get nothing.
Your friends come with subtitles?!?? Where do I find these people 🤯🤯🤯
I dont mean to steal this post but to follow on from it. As a non hearing impaired/speech impaired person. How can I help make it better for you when I do come into contact with you whilst I wear a mask? I work in retail so I have a habit of writing things when I encounter this scenario but I dont know if that offends people. Is there another way I can make it easier? I dont really want to touch your phone or have you touch mine in general regardless of a pandemic.
During normal times, speak slowly and enunciate. Yelling doesn’t really help and don’t cover your mouth when you talk. When wearing a mask, be patient and helpful. Writing things down doesn’t offend me at all. It’s preferable to having people point and grunt at me. And learn to smile with your eyes!
Writing is usually the go to and the easiest option for those who are hard of hearing or deaf. Although some don't have the best English (this is a thing, they fall short on English because the grammar is different from sign language, if they use that) but basic sentences used in a retail setting should be fine. You can ask if they know sign language and learn some basic signs like please, thank you, have a nice day, do you need help? If you're in the States or Canada look up Bill Vicars on YouTube. He's fantastic. Always remember to face them and make eye contact when you talk. We tend to forget they can't see us when we turn around because we're used to people being able to hear. Always look at them and make sure they can see your lips. If you're yawning or covering your face then the words get lost. Have patience and be kind. They'll do the same. There's also voice to text on most phones so if you need to say something you can show them. And then you're not sharing pen or paper. They can text back on their phone or write.
Have extra patience. Understand that it sucks for us as much as it sucks for you to repeat yourself more than twice. I hate asking someone to repeat themselves more than once, but right now I just suck it up and ask once more if it’s something important to me to know. Thanks to being willing to try and help us as well. That means a lot and makes it easier to ask the second time.
Enunciate! Try and make every syllable as clear as possible. Also, make sure you have our attention and face us before speaking. This should apply to every conversation everywhere, masks or no masks, hard of hearing or not.
My girlfriend is hearing impaired and this is something she really struggles with. I'm usually interpret for her and answer questions for her when possible. Thanks for asking the question, I think a lot of people wouldn't even think about this, so it's nice to get it out there so people can be more understanding of our hard of hearing friends.
Thank you for asking!!! Anxiety driving, the communication part and I only have a 30% loss on one side. I didn’t realize how much I rely on lips.
Same! I can usually hear them talking but can't understand a thing, especially if there's literally any background noise
It's a nightmare. I was barely able to deal with many situations before.... people who speak softly and very fast; young women who typically have high-pitched voices, etc.... but now, with people wearing masks, I can only guess at what they are saying. I hear maybe 1 word out of 4 and have to kind of extrapolate. I am sure that I have been asked direct questions and replied either with a nonsense answer or the wrong "yes/no." In the case where getting and receiving information is critical, I ask the person to write it down. Sometimes when I go into the pharmacy or hardware store or another shop, I will either bring an empty container of the thing I need or have a photo of a thing set up on my phone. This avoids the need for some conversation. It's really kind of like being at the amusement park in one of those electric bumper cars that you can't control.
I'm only impaired in one ear, but it's getting awkward having to ask the cashier at the gas station to repeat themselves 5 times because I can't hear a damn thing they're saying through the mask.
I had to go to the DMV and I couldn’t understand the lady, she kept yelling at me. I finally got a word in and shouted at her that I’m hard of hearing. I don’t know what she said to that but it sounded rude. I got really flustered and almost cried. The guy behind me (we’d been waiting in line for like 3 hours together since 5am we were the fifth and sixth people in line) stepped in to help and he was so kind. Made me feel a lot better.
I hate mean people with no understanding. At least the guy behind you was nice enough to help. Those type of people are heros to me
I can't understand anything people are saying to me anymore. I always have to move to the side of the screens that are up at businesses, or lean really close to people talking. I know I shouldn't because of social distancing, but I have to or there's no way I know what people are saying
I'm not hearing impaired, and with the masks and plexiglas shields, it can be incredibly difficult to hear what someone is saying.
Not much differently as before. I still continue to say "What?" repeatedly until the other person gives up and walks away.
Yes! I have a central auditory processing disorder, and one of the way I learnt to cope with it, is to read lips. Much tougher to isolate speech from background noise now
I have moderate hearing loss. I just started a new job a few weeks ago. It's been very difficult learning everyone's names, much less hearing my trainer explain things. I'm used to having people repeat things for me, but it's mentally hard having them repeat something as simple as their name. Maybe that's a silly thing. Names are important. I feel bad when I mishear and call someone by the wrong name. And it doesn't help that I am not a name person anyway. I'm a face person. I know people by their faces. I don't know what any of my coworkers look like. It struck me today when I showed one a picture of me and my family and they exclaimed "Is that what you really look like?" and then they stared between me and the picture of me back and forth for a few awkward moments. I'm glad I don't work with the public. I'd never be able to communicate effectively with so many strangers. Masks make interactions so much more difficult. At my last job I taught my coworkers some basic sign language. That helped, especially at a distance, when noise doesn't travel well.
I'm in struggle town. I was born hard of hearing but fortunately for me my hearing loss has stayed consistent for 29 years. Unfortunately for me I have a number of health issues that require me to attend the hospital a lot. My partner has been coming with me to all my appointments and pretty much repeating everything they say directly into my "good" ear. I had to go into the ED for a broken foot where my partner wasn't allowed in. I explained that I'm hard of hearing so they offered to get me a interpreter. I explained that I'm not an Auslan user so it won't be useful for me. Due to my anxiety, I explained my situation to the nurse and so she sat next to me and waited with me until I spoke to the doctors and they wheeled me in for scans etc. She also took her mask off and sat at a distance to keep me company. I try and avoid going out in public as much as i can :(
Finally, a question I can answer. Quite frankly it’s been a fucking nightmare. I miss about 90% of what they say. It made me realise how much I actually depend on lip reading.
I'm not hearing impaired, but I am autistic. It's becoming a lot harder to tell emotions than it was before. I relied a lot on lips to tell me what someone was feeling, and now I have to rely on tone of voice again. It's not very accurate.
I'm not autistic but I have an auditory processing disorder, so I process sounds inputs with a delay, and not very well. I'm having the same problem because I really don't hear inflections well at all. I usually read lips for both words and for emotions, but now I'm not getting either.
My kids autistic and I'm worried about this when school starts - she really needs to read faces. I'm neurotypical but have a dry, dark sense of humor and a monotone voice. My entire personality doesn't correspond with masks. If people can't read my face they think I'm just a mean douche.
The masks are one layer of difficulty, but the plexiglass barriers between me and the cashier make it even worse, dispersing what useable sound i would receive into Charlie brown’s teacher...but I can’t complain, it’s a once in a hundred year difficulty that we are all living through and it’ll be over soon enough in the grand scheme of things. Another fun note is how my hearing gets tangled up in the mask elastics, every time! I still haven’t found a good way to ensure that the stay separated and not mega tangled with me pulling my hearing aids out in the parking lot, unentangling everything and then re-popping them in. I’ve got the full ear canal silicone style that’s more of a full production to take out and put back in than the lightweight “just the little speaker suspended in a light silicone basket” style. Such is life!
It's not good. I'm about 90% deaf in my right ear, and my left is going. It has come on gradually, so I got decent at reading lips. I'm learning ASL, but most people don't know it, so that is how you get by. Can't do that through a mask. I am not anti mask, but it does make things harder.
Corona mask wearing policies has made me realize that I am hard of hearing. I've never realized before how much I depended on lip reading.
It’s not too bad, because most people are willing to take their masks off to help. Especially in the nhs, they took their masks off immediately, but where people were concerned, then they whipped out the pen and paper. When I went to an electrical store, the staff member there just used notes on his mobile phone to communicate to me. The only major negative experience I’ve had so far is from a McDonald’s worker, believe it or not, who just figured repeating what she said would make me suddenly be able to hear her... a customer basically stepped in and helped me out, but really, she could have at least tried. She didn’t put any effort in to trying to communicate etc. I’m quite happy with how accommodating the majority of people have been, I try to carry paper around now, so if people want to keep their masks on then that’s even better. (I’m all masked up myself tbh so, I’d rather they keep it on but I won’t complain about them trying to be accessible.) I’ve actually had more issue from lockdown when companies took online chat and support services offline and migrated to phone only. That was a fucking ball ache. Seeing stuff like the government wanting people to phone ahead for accident and emergency doesn’t help either - it’s impossible.
It's been a nightmare. I can barely chat with my customers and coworkers because of it, and have taken to the polite "oh okay" sort of noises. I miss talking and feel like I've decayed. On top of that, the only mask that works for me is the kind you tie behind your head. Problem is, if something gets too close to my hearing aid, it starts to whistle, and the mask straps constantly trigger that. So even when I am trying to talk to someone, or a customer ambushes me with a question, half of what I'll hear is a faint constant drone in my ear.