To be annoyed people don’t realise deafness has levels!

[Veryfeduphear]

I have mild hearing loss. So much so that I have hearing aids that I wear sometimes (but don’t particularly like them), I have to lip read, ESPECIALLY in noisy environments, and do this without even realising. I spend a lot of time asking people to face me, telling them there’s no point talking to me whilst we’re in a noisy room and even having to tell some people with ‘softer’ voices that they may as well give up. As well as the hearing loss I have issues with frequency separation, so often noises just blur into one.

However I have no major issues, and don’t consider this hearing loss a major impact on my life.

I don’t tell people I have hearing loss, but people do notice and then ask me. I get comments like “oh you talk well for a deaf person” and all of a sudden people start shouting at me very loudly. And “but you work somewhere where you have to talk a lot!”

AIBU to think that most people should realise that not every single person on the planet who has hearing issues is 100%, profoundly deaf?

I'm going to politely decline your invitation there, young, as arguing with strangers on the internet is not my main job, and I'm quite sure that getting into all of this with you is of absolutely no benefit to anyone. As you've stated, you don't think that disability awareness is important and should not be important to anyone else, an attitude that i find repugnant to be honest. So I'm going to disengage with this thread now.

partial hearing loss is very common 1 in 6 people suffer so it is not like a really rare disability that people can not be expected to know about, wearing glasses attracts virtually no comment, it is far more reasonable to expect people to know and make adjustments about common things like hearing loss, depression, poor sight, diabetes, peanut allergy and autism than it is about ehlers syndrome, bell's palsy, etc

People are in general very disablist about deafness, they refuse to do reasonable adjustments which are required in law ie switching off background music when asked, turning to face the person so they can lip read or simply repeating something, these are reasonable adjustments that can be done by anyone anywhere, school shop home etc,

ok a large establishment like a university/ church/ theatre/concert hall would be expected to have "T" system for lectures public speaking etc in all lecture theatres

hearing aids to not make hearing perfect but they help a lot, I agree people who refuse to wear their hearing aids are a nuisance just like people refusing to wear their glasses and bumping into people or breaking things they didn't see.

Deafness is often associated with increased risk of tinnitus which is incurable and the noise inside the ear makes hearing other things difficult at times

I can't hear you if you are behind me, or if you are in front with your back to me, I'm not an expert lip reader but I need to be able to see your face

No-one looks deaf!!!!!!!!!! so yes as a person with hearing loss you do need to tell people you have hearing loss ask them if they have the T system switched on (some companies have it but not switched on)

it is disabalist to refuse to repeat something when asked, it is insulting to say oh it doesn't matter when it clearly did or you wouldn't have said it in the first place, speaking slower may help shouting will probably not

Some people do not understand the law that reasonable adjustments have to be made regardless of popular opinion ie in an office with a deaf person no background music is reasonable even if the other 7 people would prefer it on, in this case 7 to 1 democracy is not a factor, while in the same office 7 to 1 in choice of douwe egberts versus nescafe instant coffee would be reasonable to go with majority,

it is not ok to discriminate against any type of disabled person once you know and children should be taught, there was a thread in the last week about a physically disabled child being left out of games and the general consensus was this was not acceptable though equally a ban on physical games for all children would be unreasonable, it would be just as bad to leave a deaf child out of stuff on a regular basis

Children would not be able to get away with calling other kids with glasses "four eyes" or worse so they shouldn't get away with being mean to deaf children either

There are some basic principles underlying all disability awareness.

Assume the disabled person is capable of doing something unless they tell you they can't.

Don't assume what help they need - ask them. Otherwise you might end up offering a Braille menu to a Deaf customer, and look like a complete plonker.

Not all disabilities are visible. Believe them, it's generally too much effort being disabled to bother lying about it.

It's rude to interrogate people about their medical history, unless you're just about to give them medical treatment / first aid. It might be OK to ask a close friend, it's almost never OK to ask a stranger you just met at the bus stop.

These are all social skills, based around being respectful to other human beings. If we can teach children to respect people of other races, or kids with ginger hair, why is it so hard to teach respect of disability ?

I just don't understand. If I disrespected a nondisabled person, I'm sure they'd rush to be offended!

Well said chou.

@nomorespaghetti

You: If you really want me to go through my plans to overhaul the education system when I am in charge then I can

Me: Yes please.

You: I'm going to politely decline your invitation there

Well, glad you cleared that up

@TeacupDrama

Are you really saying that refusing to turn to face some, repeat something etc is a legal requirement ie. not doing so is illegal?

I say "I'm hard of hearing," rather than use "deaf." It tends to give the right impression, since I'm not deaf. :D

Are you really saying that refusing to turn to face some, repeat something etc is a legal requirement ie. not doing so is illegal?

I'm assuming she means reasonable accommodations, like, if she's at the airport or at the doctor's or whatever. Because I simply can't imagine that it's illegal for someone on the street to not turn to face them when talking to them.

Some of what I was going to say. has been said by TeacupDrama.

fawkesAgain2, one of the differences about deafness is that it can develop at any point in your life, unlike the conditions that you mention. FWIW, because I have children with ADHD/SN I could say, Yes, to your question.

I've turned 50. I had my Tonsils out and my hearing has dropped (it has been diagnosed why). When I attend the ENT clinic, there are people of all ages, whose hearing has dropped.

I think Deafness certainly shouldn't be viewed as something that won't effect you and there should be some awareness around it.

One of my Brownies was told by a member of staff at her school that she couldn't have hearing loss because she didn't wear hearing aids (with accompanying telling-off for lying, of course).

At Brownies we sorted out with her & her mother what would be most helpful for her. Similarly, when I've had Brownie Parents who're profoundly deaf I've used communication forms they prefer; made sure I didn't automatically assume they wouldn't want to come to things (I know it happens); never covered my mouth or turned away if we were talking even though neither parent really lip-read; & made sure that I signed hello & goodbye (plus "you're welcome" as they invariably said "thank you" for having had the girls!) at start/end meetings. All tiny things & should be totally normal - but unfortunately I know they're not. Some people do seem to have the bizarre attitude/belief that the [profoundly] deaf could just somehow Stop Being Deaf if they just tried a bit harder - perhaps they think that hearing aids work for everyone (& that, if they've heard of them, cochlear implants are a magical solution).

When I was wee one of my aunts worked for Action On Hearing Loss (then just the RNID) so I've always been aware there are degrees of hearing loss & a huge range of causes of it. (Thanks to one of her colleagues there I'm still careful about the volume I listen to music at - I might've been four, but a promise is a promise, right...?)

I have major hearing loss, have visible hearing aids, it’s pretty obvious. When a lot of people speak, I tell them I need them to speak a lot louder as I just can’t hear. They then just repeat at the same volume. I repeat I need them to speak louder in order to hear what they are saying, merely repeating it does not help. They keep speaking at the same volume. It’s infuriating. It’s not me either as when DH or other friends are with me they confirm (afterwards) the people did not increase their volume whatsoever. Weird, weird, weird.

@Birdsgottafly

I chose them as examples of people only really being interested in things that have an effect on them. However, seems like a good time to tell you that diabetes can develop at any point in your life. I'm surprised you didn't know that!

I bet you knew little about SEN / ADHD before your child started showing particular behaviours.

Gah! Headbutted by a cat = accidentally hitting post before I was finished.

What I was after saying is that often understanding will come from lived experience - in my case I learned quite a lot from babyhood until reception age or so (am not sure when she moved jobs to the Portrait Gallery, but in YR she provided my class with alphabet fingerspelling cards). I also took a sadly v incomplete BSL course in Sixth Form - our lessons kept being cancelled at the last minute & finally the course quietly vanished. (It did also feature the VERY awkward thing of me having to say my mother was dead - we were talking about families - & the tutor going into a complete spin & repeatedly apologising which actually just made me feel far worse than calmly moving on would have. I do understand it's difficult for adults when encountering a child/teen who's been bereaved like that, but drawing more attention to them & basically making it about you & demanding they reassure you...? Not great, really. [As distinct from briefly acknowledging what's been said in the socially acceptable way & then moving things on, I mean. But that's a serious digression...]).

As PPs have commented, this is true of pretty much all disabilities/serious health conditions - people don't know about them unless they impinge on their life in some way. As someone else said, though, ideally disability awareness would be included on the school syllabus - you'd think it should be part of PSHE, really. Disability Awareness is something that we cover in Girlguiding (not sure how it'll be done in the new programme that rolls out in September but can't imagine them binning it off!) - there's a badge for it in Brownies & my Unit, at least, request to do it quite regularly; & it seems to be quite popular going from things I see on social media. In the Guide Section, one of the badges Patrols work for together has activities designed to help them learn about aspects of sightloss & of hearingloss; & suggestions for practical community engagement. Obviously I think it's great that Guiding (& Scouting) give children & adolescents a space to learn about disabilities, but not all children are involved in the movements. We also shouldn't have what starts to feel like the responsibility to teach our members about this stuff - because it is important & someone DOES need to do it. Obviously you can't cover everything - but something is better than nothing. Similarly, it's great that Scouting & Guiding has long-term MH benefits & in particular narrows the gap you see in MH outcomes based on socio-economic status - but actually there needs to be massive investment in the NHS & much more work on narrowing the impact the wealth-gap has on outcomes. Am genuinely scared Hunt is going to see this as some kind of a solution. Despite our epic waiting list issues & massive volunteer shortage. Oh, & it clearly in no way being so. But when has he ever let that stop him?

I'm sorry, I think I should have been sleeping not trying to post...

The TL;DR is probably:

• individual knowledge will almost certainly be shaped by life experience
• but it shouldn't be purely happenstance that determines knowledge; PSHE should include disability awareness
• there ARE spaces where children & adolescents learn about disabilities
• of course one can never know about all of them; deciding that means you shouldn't learn about any = Foolish

@youngOffenders why are you so determined not to give an inch in terms of understanding or support for deaf people? You are coming across as a right twat.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, l didn't mean it was illegal in the street or home I said it was disabalist and mean, it is however illegal for a business not to make reasonable adjustments that applies to any business for any disability, what is reasonable depends on the circumstances and the type of disability,

People with deafness often get mistaken for being shy or aloof or even ignorant for not answering or joining in, when they can't because they probably never heard you in the first place.