Common Hearing Loss Mistakes to Avoid

When chatting with a loved one, friend, or stranger experiencing hearing loss, it’s important not to make assumptions about the best way to communicate. Do you find yourself raising your voice to speak louder? Maybe you use sign language to get the message across. By making assumptions about your conversation partner, you’re taking away their voice by not allowing them to share how they prefer to communicate.

To help you hold more effective conversations with loved ones dealing with hearing loss, the team at El Dorado Hearing has put together a list of the most common mistakes that people make when talking to those with hearing loss.

Sign Language

One of the biggest misconceptions in the hard-of-hearing world is that every individual experiencing hearing loss knows how to communicate with sign language. While sign language is a common form of communication for those with hearing loss, plenty of individuals rely on hearing aids or lip reading to decipher conversations.

Each person’s hearing loss affects their communication with sign language. Others may only have difficulty hearing in loud environments but can easily converse at home. Avoid signing to a hard-of-hearing individual unless you know they prefer that way of communication. Instead, ask them what you can do to help them hear you more clearly when you speak.

Hearing Aids

When an individual is experiencing hearing loss, they often rely on hearing aids to help amplify the world around them. While hearing aids do a great job amplifying the sound entering the ear, making it easier to understand, they don’t restore their hearing perfectly. Depending on their level of hearing loss, hearing aids may only help them out a bit. Plus, hearing aids aren’t great when in loud environments because they amplify all sounds — making it even more difficult for the individual to hear specific conversations.

When communicating with a loved one wearing hearing aids, you still want to do your best to articulate what you are saying as clearly as possible. Don’t expect the hearing aids to help them in every scenario and be there to lend a helping hand — or ear — when they need it.

Age

Although your hearing ability can decline with age, it’s important not to assume that only older individuals are impacted by hearing loss. More than 60% of individuals with hearing loss are under the age of 65, meaning you may come in contact with a hard-of-hearing individual more frequently than you realize.

Younger individuals with hearing loss may have a more challenging time staying social because they don’t feel like their loved ones understand what they’re going through. By treating every hard-of-hearing individual the same as your friends and family without hearing loss, you’ll help them not feel as isolated.

Frustration

It can be easy to feel a little bit frustrated when communicating with a hard-of-hearing individual because they constantly need you to repeat what you’re saying. Understand that it is likely just as frustrating for the individual as it is for you, if not more so. Depending on the surrounding noise, they may need you to clarify what you said or speak more clearly for them to be an active participant in the conversation. They aren’t trying to make you feel frustrated or attack the way you communicate; they’re simply trying to engage with the people around them.

Volume

Oftentimes, you’ll see hearing loss depicted in television shows and movies by individuals speaking loudly to the hard-of-hearing individual. Because of this, you may naturally raise the volume of your voice if you know you’re talking to someone with hearing loss.

While this may be effective in specific situations, volume isn’t always what the individual needs to hear more clearly. They’ll already be utilizing tools such as hearing aids to amplify sound in many cases. This means it is far more critical that you clearly articulate what you’re saying and speak clearly so the individual can read your lips as needed.

Schedule a Hearing Evaluation for a Loved One

If your loved one is struggling to hear in everyday situations, you may be wondering how you can help them manage their hearing loss. The first step to addressing the problem is to schedule a diagnostic hearing evaluation with a hearing specialist to determine the problem and provide the best treatment plan to improve the patient’s hearing.

In many cases, the hearing specialist will recommend hearing aids to help amplify sounds — enabling your loved one to communicate with you effectively.

Call El Dorado Hearing to schedule a hearing consultation for your loved one. We’d be more than happy to assist and get their hearing back on track.