Communicating with People with Hearing Loss

Those with hearing loss may perceive sounds a little differently from others. As a result, successfully communicating with someone that has hearing loss requires a slightly different approach. If you have to communicate with someone that has hearing loss, then there are a couple of ways to make things easier for the both of you.

Don’t Cover Your Mouth

When speaking to someone with hearing loss, try not to cover your mouth and keep your lips in full view of the person. Anything that could block sound when speaking can make it a little more difficult for the person with hearing loss to understand you. Covering your mouth doesn’t necessarily mean with your hand either. If you’re wearing a mask, it could muffle the sound and make it very difficult for the person to understand you. You could also try to avoid speaking while you’re chewing food, as this can distort the sound and make it difficult to piece together what you’re saying.

Another reason for this is because people with hearing loss tend to relate the sounds they’re hearing with the movement of your lips. While they might not be able to lip read, they can often sync the movement of your lips to the sound they’re hearing to create more context on what you’re actually saying. This makes it much easier for them to understand you and is something that many of us can do even if we’re not aware of it.

Understand the Person and Their Preferences

Everyone’s hearing loss is different. Some people have one ear that hears better than the other, and some people might find it difficult to hear sounds at a particular frequency or volume. If you take some time to better understand the person you’re speaking to, then you’ll have a much easier time communicating in the future.

Ask them if it’s easier to understand you when you speak a certain way and ask them if they have one ear that can hear better than the other. Then in the future, position yourself so that you’re speaking into their better ear, or at least angle yourself so that the sounds coming from your mouth are more likely to reach that ear first. This may take a bit of time to get used to, but it’s one of the more effective ways to communicating with someone with hearing loss as you’re taking their personal preferences and needs into consideration.

Speak Slowly and Clearly

Changes in volume can actually distort the sound that the person with hearing loss hears. By speaking clearly and slowly to someone, you’ll make it much easier for them to understand the sounds coming from your mouth and they’ll have an easier time processing what it is you’re saying. The trick is to try and maintain a consistent volume while also spacing out words.

Avoid speaking rapidly and adjusting your volume too much. Try not to mix two words together by speaking too quickly, and always pronounce things as clearly as you can.

Face the Person Directly If They Wear Hearing Aids

The way a hearing aid works is that a microphone picks up sound around the person and amplifies it. However, this can mean that it picks up a lot of random noise around them that they don’t really want to hear. The hardware inside of a hearing aid can be programmed to filter out certain frequencies, but it can also amplify sounds that are coming from a certain direction.

As such, speaking directly at the person ensures that your voice travels directly to their hearing aids and makes it much clearer for them to understand. If you position yourself so that you’re on the same level and directly in front of them, then they’ll find it much easier to listen to what you’re saying. This also helps because the person you’re speaking to can also see your lips. Even if they can’t lip read, their brain will process the movement of the lips to make it a bit easier for them to understand what you’re saying.

Need More Advice?

Audiology and Hearing Aid Services is a professional audiologist that can help those with hearing-related challenges. Whether you’re looking for a service that can help a friend or loved one with their hearing loss or if you’re simply interested in taking a hearing test to examine your own hearing, we’d be more than happy to assist you. Simply get in touch with us today at 912-351-3038 to speak to one of our team members.