Those who live with hearing loss know that every day can present unanticipated communication challenges. Whether it is trying to talk to a neighbor on a gusty day or keep up with the hilarious dialog of your favorite TV show, speech is often coming to us in less-than-ideal circumstances. Fortunately, there are simple ways to make your hearing experience easier and less frustrating.
Use Hearing Aids
For most people with significant hearing loss, hearing aids can offer considerable improvement to the way they communicate. Hearing aids fitted and programmed by your hearing specialist offer hearing assistance custom tailored to meet the needs of your hearing challenges. Modern hearing aids are powerful and many offer a bevy of features that can help you adapt your hearing to a wide variety of circumstances, such as the ability to stream digital audio directly into the ear and adaptive settings to suppress background noise.
Unlike glasses, hearing aids take time to adjust to, so if you have hearing aids it is important to wear them every day. While hearing aids can offer relief and assistance to hearing loss at almost every stage, the earlier hearing aids are introduced the easier it is for your hearing to adapt to them. Hearing aids have been shown to improve cognitive performance as well as enhancing your quality of life.
Find the Quiet
Are you familiar with the sound of silence? If your hearing loss makes communication challenging, you can boost your comprehension by honing in on quiet spaces for conversations. While there is no foolproof way to find a quiet spot, there are things to look for that can provide an oasis of peace even in a noisy setting.
Areas that have textiles, carpet and upholstery are more adept at dampening excess sounds than spaces with large, echo-y smooth surfaces, like polished concrete floors. Positioning yourself near a wall rather than in the middle of a room can also enhance your hearing. Nearby walls especially increase your ability to determine the direction a sound is coming from, especially important for meetings or conversations between many people.
Learn to avoid nearby noises that can interfere with your hearing, such as being directly in line with heating or cooling vents. In public places avoid being in close proximity to high traffic areas like near bathrooms or entrance doors.
Take advantage of online resources. There are smartphone apps, online review platforms and message boards in many areas that can help you find local spaces that are appropriately quiet, such as restaurants that are easier to hold a conversation in. Making use of and contributing to these online advisors helps others find quiet spaces for better hearing as well.
Position Yourself
How well you can hear someone is also connected to how well you can observe them. Even if you don’t consider yourself to be “reading lips,” watching someone speak gives you important context clues that enhance your comprehension. When having a conversation with someone, be sure you can see their face, especially their mouth. Don’t try to have a conversation with someone who is not in your line of sight.
When you are part of a meeting or large group conversation, try to situate yourself where you can easily see most of the participants. Having these sight lines helps you keep track of who is speaking as well as what is being said.
Use Accessibility Technology
Over the past several years, accessibility technology has grown in leaps and bounds, including real time speech-to-text captioning and transcription. With the rise of speech recognition software for everything from online language learning to digital assistants to video conferencing, speech transcription is quicker and more accurate than ever before. You may want to try out app options for your smartphone or digital devices and computers.
Even without using speech recognition transcription, smartphones offer a simple tool for making communication easier: texting. If texting conversations are easier for you to engage in and understand, let your friends and family know your preference. Smartphones and even basic cell phones make texting easy and fluid. Their ubiquitous use in culture today makes them an excellent option for easing the strain of settings where listening comprehension is difficult.
Hart Hearing & Balance Centers
If you have experienced changes in the quality of communication with your loved ones and believe you may have a hearing loss, we’re here to help! Contact us at Hart Hearing & Balance Centers today to schedule an appointment.