Bridging the Gap Between the Hearing & Deaf Worlds
Why would a deaf person not wear hearing aids if the options are there for them and the technology are available to help them?
It’s easy assume that deaf and hard of hearing people should wear hearing aids (perhaps to help hearing people?).
But there are many things that you should consider, as I explain in this post.
Twitter has decided to rollout a new audio tweet feature to set group of iOS users to allow another way to express your voice.
But it didn’t go according to plan when the d/Deaf and hard of hearing community expressed their frustration about its lack of accessibility, which prompted various individuals within the company to release their own statements.
Why would a deaf person wear hearing aids (or perhaps cochlear implants)? Surely if we can’t hear, then hearing aids are pointless, right?
Not so much.
This is amongst one of the most popular question I see online, and even though the question may seem obvious to some people, it’s unfair to assume that everyone will and should know the answer.
Is there such a thing as a ‘deaf privilege’?
The word ‘privilege’ has some kind of stigma attaches to it. But it doesn’t and should’t have to be.
But even for someone like me, I would say that I have “deaf privilege”; where even though I am deaf/hard of hearing, I still have some privileges linked to it so that I can acknowledge what I have, appreciate what I have and be aware of what I have, despite my deafness.
The TV and film industries rarely display deaf characters.
Which is why it’s quite exciting to see that a popular soap programme in the UK, Eastenders, on the BBC has dedicated an entire episode from the perspective of a character who has lost his hearing.
And with the help of the right people in the background, they have managed to pull-off a very good episode that perfectly demonstrates the challenges and barriers that most, if not all, d/Deaf and hard of hearing people face.
Learn about my reactions to this unique Eastenders episode here
I still get surprised on how I get asked both of these questions that are related to each other but completely contrasting at the same time by different people.
Most people assume that deaf people can’t speak (yes we can). If we do, we “speak well for a deaf person (yeah, don’t say that) or you don’t speak very well (yeah, don’t say that either).
So I share my own experiences of how come for one group of people, I do speak clearly, and for others, I don’t speak clearly.
Recently, there has been a rise in the number of video calls. It’s not just by people who are working from home, but also those are away or isolated from their friends and families (particularly as we are going through a global pandemic). So it’s natural that video calls is the next best option to connect with those you can’t meet in-person.
During this period where people are feeling exhausted from all the calls; so much so, that the term ‘Zoom fatigue’ has been coined to label this type of tiredness.
It sounds like a new thing…but for those who are d/Deaf and hard of hearing (and perhaps many others), this feeling is just a normal part of our everyday lives.
It’s hard enough to make the world around us more deaf aware during a normal day-to-day life. It’s a bigger challenge when it’s during a global pandemic.
Even though there have been calls for interpreters and captions when important information are shared, it seems that these are somewhat neglected when attempting to relay the message to as many people as possible.
Only, for those who are d/Deaf, they are ignored.
There are so many barriers that we could focus on when it comes to deaf awareness.
But since it’s Deaf Awareness Week in the UK (as of 4th-10th May 2020), there is one particular topic that I wanted to focus in light of it being a popular trend.
