Masks everywhere...what about those who have a hearing impairment

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Just that really.
I have a hearing loss in 1 ear, and have to wear a mask at work. I never realised how much I rely on lip reading!!

It's difficult and mine is only a mild impairment. I really feel for those who will truly struggle if this comes into force in more environments

I think they’re a necessary evil at the moment, but as someone with hearing loss who gets by normally with careful listening, lip reading and guesswork I am now finding myself actually ‘deaf’ in some situations. It’s not just the lip reading, the mask actually muffles the sound too.

IRL I always say I have “some hearing loss” or “difficulty hearing” if it comes up, but now find myself saying “sorry, I’m deaf” as conversation is no longer possible. I can’t believe how lonely it feels. It has certainly given me greater appreciation of my remaining hearing and a whole lot more understanding for people who have greater hearing loss than me. You can find ways around the funcational stuff, it’s the isolation.

If they make KN95 masks in a clear fabric I will happily order them so that the deaf and hard of hearing can lip-read.

I live in a country where masks in public are obligatory for everyone over 2, and the fines for it not covering your mouth and nose are punitive. You can take them off in a cafe or restaurant when you’re eating. That’s all. I don’t have an answer to the OP’s dilemma, but for anyone else worried about wearing them, it becomes natural and normal very quickly - keys, purse, mask.

It's really not an either/or, it's about finding ways of making things accessible.

I'm visually impaired, the clear plastic screens around tills are a nightmare for people like me. We can't see them so end up bashing into them. The RNIB has been working with retailers to get them to put tape around them to make them more visible.

Masks are needed. There are masks that work for lip readers. If we can encourage people to use them - particularly customer-facing roles, then it eases the negative impact on deaf/hoh people.

I find many people working in customer-facing roles already have little Deaf awareness anyway. This is going to add to my frustration. I have my live transcribe app but I don't know how accurate it'll be when the speaker is wearing a mask and will be 2m away.

The world will be a more isolating place, I guess.

In the supermarket and bus situations, you could indicate to the person serving/driving that you can't hear, and they could write on the Perspex screen (or a small whiteboard) with a whiteboard pen.
While it would take some getting used to, I'm sure we can all find ways to communicate if we work together.

I’m struggling, I have bilateral hearing loss. I went to another chemist (not my usual) and left in tears because I couldn’t understand what was wing said. This meant that they felt fully entitled to treat me like an idiot with lots of eye rolling.

DS2 is totally deaf in one ear. He’s going to struggle. Those windowed masks look great.

the talk here is of masks - but the govr guidance is face covering - this is hugely different an can include visors.
Even research papers that I've read commence with 'covering' and then revert to .mask'/ If you rely on lip reading, you can;t influence what other people wear - other than close relatives and friends you see a lot, but it could solve the problem of discomfort because of the hearing aids in your ear.
I find a visor more comfortable and less restrictive.
Govt guidance on public transport states face covering, not mask.

instructions for making a mask with viewing panel for lipreading

www.hsdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/DHH-Mask-Project-and-Tutorial.pdf

I’m another who didn’t realise how much I rely on lip reading.
Fortunately we can socially distance at work and masks aren’t mandatory but last week I was on the verge of abandoning my regular blood donor session because all the health professionals were wearing masks and I was finding it difficult to follow new instructions and protocol.
We muddled through and a nurse did remove her mask for a short while but the experience has made me dread the next appointment.

Zippea that’s awful

I was answering a poster who said she used lip reading even though she didn't have hearing loss, which is why I asked if she was as spy.

I'm guessing somebody working in a school not wanting little ears to hear something.

I hadn't thought about this until yesterday when I was in the supermarket - the hearing impaired checkout assistant had another assistant helping her to tell her what customers were saying.

yes, it will be really tough.

BankofNook Young children and disabled people are exempt, I think the disability has to stop you using a mask, it sounds like your dc will fir that criteria.

Zippea

That's awful. Could you request to be seen in the consulting room with you wearing a mask and the pharmacist not?

My son is hearing impaired and is aided in both ears, he also uses BSL and despite only being four is a good lip reader.

If we were in a silent environment he would be able to understand at least 50% of word spoken by someone in a mask if he was familiar with their accent. Without a mask it is more like 90%. These aren’t approximate, when he is seen by the hearing service some tests involve the person speaking covering their mouth so he can’t cheat on the verbal hearing test.

If he is in an environment with noise whether thats the TV, radio, someone else talking, traffic noise etc he cannor understand verbal speech unless he is looking directly at you.

Someone up thread said people can use BSL, yes, but it is very unlikely the person they are communicating with knows BSL.

I used BSL to highlight this issue. Masks do prevent many people with a hearing impairment from communicating. Now imagine being a hearing person and to prevent the spread of covid the whole population can only use BSL. Imagine how frustrating, but also how tiring that would be. That sadly is the reality for a huge number of hearing impaired people.

I'm deaf in one ear and have found hospital appointments particularly hard with all the PPE/screens etc. I'm due to have a section soon and will more than likely not be able to hear anything that's going on. Must ask surgeon to hold up "it's a boy/girl" placard

This meant that they felt fully entitled to treat me like an idiot with lots of eye rolling.

^^This. It's so common that from when I was a young child my mother would endlessly say to people, "She's deaf not daft - have the manners to face her when you speak."

And, no - I don't find that people are generally understanding when I ask them to face me/repeat something etc. I find that they tend to be somewhere between frustrated to very annoyed.

tbh, although it's not her job to resolve the issue, I was pretty hacked-off when Prof Trisha Greenhalgh's response to a deaf doctor who relies on lip-reading was along the lines that her inability to continue in her role/career was a price worth paying to control the spread of COVID19. (Royal Society of Medicine online event about COVID19.)

[quote EmbarrassingAdmissions]This meant that they felt fully entitled to treat me like an idiot with lots of eye rolling.

^^This. It's so common that from when I was a young child my mother would endlessly say to people, "She's deaf not daft - have the manners to face her when you speak."

And, no - I don't find that people are generally understanding when I ask them to face me/repeat something etc. I find that they tend to be somewhere between frustrated to very annoyed.

tbh, although it's not her job to resolve the issue, I was pretty hacked-off when Prof Trisha Greenhalgh's response to a deaf doctor who relies on lip-reading was along the lines that her inability to continue in her role/career was a price worth paying to control the spread of COVID19. (Royal Society of Medicine online event about COVID19.)

[/quote] THIS

I'm profoundly deaf. I was born deaf and have faced difficulties my entire life. It is hard enough to communicate in 'normal' circumstances when I can lipread and it was often hurtful to cope with the reactions from people when they were asked to repeat themselves/face me etc.

With masks, I won't understand anything and will often not know if someone is speaking to me. I have already faced difficulties with shop staff wearing masks and reacting badly when I explained I couldn't understand them and that I was deaf. If masks or face coverings are mandatory in all public spaces, then yes I am supportive because of covid but it will mean I won't be going out at all because I can't face anymore angry, irritated people purely because I ask if they could communicate in a different way. I will become even more isolated than I already am and this worries me.

For those willing to add aupport for the call for transparent masks, Deaf Voice, a group of deaf professionals are campaigning to get transparent masks available and are emailing a letter to the Government. If you would like to add your name to the letter then email them at [email protected]. More details are on Twitter.

I think people may have to temporarily rely on other hearing aids

Where do you you think people will get hearing aids from if they don't already have them? It's not just a case of 'there's a hearing aid, you'll be able to hear now'. They have to be fitted and adjusted for the individual and even then they don't necessarily restore hearing loss. DH is deaf and has hearing aids but he still struggles due to the frequency of his hearing loss. He can't hear higher pitched voices even with his hearing aids.

My dad went to get his prescription yesterday, 2m barrier in place, she was behind screen and he couldnt hear a thing she was saying so she ended up taking the mask down so he could lip read. what if she was giving him new instructions on meds and he didnt hear and just took them?

I wear bilateral hearing aids. It’s going to be a pain in the nether regions. However for the next few months, I am just going to have to muddle through.

I am aware that I am not as bad as many people though. If it comes to it, I will simply have to take the mask off.

Not a quotation. For people wondering why lip-readers don't just try and manage with hearing aids, the tl;dr is that it's rather more complicated than that for many people and hearing aids aren't a solution for some of us.

For those of you asking about hearing aids for those of us who are lip-readers, please allow for the possibility that:
some of us know whether or not there are hearing aids that are suited to our type of hearing loss and where it is on the sound spectrum (and, like a PP's DH, sensorineural hearing loss is the one in the high frequency range and there wasn't a hearing aid for it until comparatively recently and for technical reasons it doesn't help everyone with losses in that range);
even if there is a hearing aid that matches somewhere where we have a loss on the sound spectrum (crudely, let's say the so-called 'conductive' range which is lower), then some of us have been born with anomalies that mean we don't have anything to conduct that sound, or have had infections/whatever that have so damaged the area that there is nothing to conduct the sound so there are some of us for who 'conductive' hearing aids don't do anything helpful;
hearing aids are unpopular with a substantial segment of their users and can be very inconvenient;
the quality of readily-available hearing aids means that they amplify the whole auditory spectrum where you are which means that some people are driven scatty by overwhelming background noise and that the sound of a crisp packet or cutlery on a plate can be genuinely painful (which is why some people turn them off and on);
there are people with hearing aids who rely more on lip-reading than they realise because it helps them set their auditory gain level somewhere where it's not painful;
there are now some very good, very expensive, high-quality hearing-aids for which you need to be able to pay approx £10-15K if you need both (not available on NHS unless someone is deaf-blind and even then, not always) and it's helpful to be tech-savvy to use them.

I've never had the sort of hearing that could be remediated by hearing aids. I'm getting a fair amount of resistance and not much help from some colleagues in our virtual meetings. They won't use the software that comes with live captions and they don't want to take care about sitting with their full face to a web camera, in reasonable lighting, so that I can see what they're saying. And these are all professionals, clinicians and academics.

And none of the above begins to cover the different considerations for people who have a lesser hearing loss but for whom:
(in the UK) English is a second language and they rely on seeing the face of the speaker;
cognitive disabilities mean that they need the help of seeing someone.

I have severe hearing loss and was just underway with addressing this when luck didn’t happened. I need a hearing aid but if course can’t get one right now

I have found telling people I’m hard of hearing at the start of conversation and to please speak up Has helped considerably, Aldo with people talking directly to you as opposed to turning away or talking to the side with the ear I can’t hear out of. Speak up about your hearing loss - people will be accommodating

To add to EmbarrassingAdmissions post, for many people with profound hearing loss, there are very few hearing aids that can amplify enough, nor can any help if you have no hearing at all. It's not enough to say 'learn sign language' (many people with this level of hearing loss do learn BSL) because there are not enough hearing people who can also sign. Interpreters are also expensive and not available for all human interactions!

I have a cochlear implant, a type of hearing aid if you like, that is implanted in my ear and effectively allows the cochlear (the bit that interprets frequencies and sends signals to the brain) to be bypassed. It's generally only suitable for those with severe/profound sensorineural hearing loss. Yes, it helps me hugely but, I am still deaf. I still struggle every day to hear and understand what is said. It is just another form of aid to help me hear but doesn't solve my hearing problems.

Hearing aids and cochlear implants are not a solve all problem. They are used in conjunction with lip-reading, sign language, subtitles etc.

People covering their faces removes one of those ways to help Deaf people understand what is being said. I must also add that lipreading is a very simplistic way to describing the technique as Deaf people use the entire face to help interpret speech.

What we need, if we have to wear masks, are as many people as possible wearing transparent masks. It won't solve all the problems but it will help.