What matters deafness of the ears, when the mind hears?

I never imagine I would be so engrossed in graphs and charts. But these are no ordinary graphs. Audiograms tell us what kind and the degree of hearing loss one has - information crucial to understanding coping methods and taking suitable rehabilitation measures.

For the record, I have the cutest type of loss - a cookie-bite loss. *Crunch!* 

Read on…

(Thanks to Joan "The Rabbit Lover" for the link.) 

This sounds familiar - pardon the pun. I have always felt somewhat, vaguely insulted when people praise me for doing anything remotely successful - such as going through university, taking Chinese as a 2nd Language (my mother tongue subject ie.) and being an old boy of a, erm, rather well-known school.

I get the uncomfortable feeling what impresses people is not so much my intellectual or academic ability, but that I did all that despite my  (increasingly worsening) hearing loss. Some have even practically said so.

Sigh!

During my college career I have had to struggle against a stereotype about deaf people in general, fight against the common assumptions about a group of disabled people and constantly prove myself capable by shattering unfair but understandable generalizations. After blazing a trial in my own limited time (by breaking the prejudices of others) it did became tiresome and repetitive, exceedingly redundant that I have nothing to fight but the extremely low expectations and that whatever I do already clears the embarrasingly low bar is simply taken as brilliant, impressive, wonderful, amazing, or [insert any superlative here].

Read on…

As the punchline says, "The problem may not be with the other person as we always think, could be very much within us!" :-)

(Thanks to Joan for sharing.)

A man feared his wife wasn’t hearing as well as she used to and he thought she might need a hearing aid. Not quite sure how to approach her, he called the family Doctor to discuss the problem. The doctor told him there is a simple informal test the husband could perform to give the doctor a better idea about her hearing loss.

Here’s what you do," said the doctor, "stand about 40 feet away from her, and in a normal conversational speaking tone see if she hears you.  If not, go to 30 feet, then 20 feet, and so on until! you get a response."

That evening, the wife is in the kitchen cooking dinner, and he was in the den. He says to himself, "I’m about 40 feet away, let’s see what happens." Then in a normal tone he asks, ‘Honey, what’s for dinner?"

No response.

So the husband moves to closer to the kitchen, about 30 feet from his wife and repeats, "Honey, what’s for dinner?"

Still no response.

Next he moves into the dining room where he is about 20 feet from his wife and asks, Honey what’s for dinner?"

Again he gets no response so, He walks up to the kitchen door, about 10 feet away. "Honey, what’s for dinner?"

Again there is no response.

So he walks right up behind her. "Honey, what’s for dinner?"
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"James, for the FIFTH time I’ve said, CHICKEN!"

From one who’s been there, done that and has lots of relevant information and experiences to share, "Banjo"’s blog contains some noteworthy posts about deaf issues.

For these who are unfamiliar with deaf issues, you may be shocked to learn that some parents don’t bother learning how to sign with their children. In many cases, they take the doctor’s advice, which is usually the oral method. For children who were born deaf, it’s more likely to be highly difficult.

Hard-of-hearing children are radically different from the deaf when it comes to acquiring the spoken language of English. A deaf child cannot hear, even with a hearing aid, they will find it incredibly difficult to comprehend spoken words. Hearing aids are amplifiers, which is the downside, the more you amplify a sound, the lower the sound quality goes.

Read on…