Tips for hearing-loss communication

Communication when you or someone close to you has hearing loss can be difficult, but it's definitely not impossible. Here are some tips.

• The best distance at which to hold a conversation is one to two metres (3 to 6.5 feet). Don't try to talk to someone from a distance or, worse, from the next room.
• If you need glasses, wear them.
• Make sure you can see the other person's face full on, especially their lips.
• If you have better hearing in one ear than the other, position yourself so the other person is on your "good" side.
• Watch the other person's face, gestures, posture and body movements — you can get a lot of clues about what they're saying from aspects other than speech.
• If you're not sure you've heard correctly, don't ask someone to repeat the words, ask them to say it in a different way. Or try a technique called reverse questioning to confirm (or otherwise). "So I'll see you at two o'clock then?" or "Goodness, it took how long?"
• Try to stay calm. No one hears correctly all the time, and if you become anxious or flustered you may miss more. If it's noisy, ask if you can talk in a quieter place.

• Most of us lip-read to some extent when we're having a conversation against background noise — such as in a noisy bar or restaurant — though we might not realize we're doing it. It helps to "fill in the gaps," especially if we have some idea of what's being discussed.
• For people with hearing loss, lip-reading and hearing aids work together very well to greatly improve communication abilities.Your audiologist will probably know about local classes — they may even be held in the hospital. If you have a mild hearing impairment, lip-reading can help a great deal to compensate for sounds that you may otherwise miss during a conversation. For people with a severe hearing impairment, lip-reading may be the best or only way to communicate in everyday situations.
• It is more difficult to be a skilled lip-reader than you might think. Many letters and words produce the same mouth shapes when spoken. For example, "park" and "mark" look the same, and even words that sound different — sometimes with opposite meanings, like "re­d" and "green" — are mouthed in a similar way.
• A year of weekly classes is usually enough for most people to get a good grasp of the principles, and many people find that it makes a huge difference. Many organizations for the hearing-impaired advocate the benefits of joining a group. They can provide newcomers with beneficiary information, in addition to emotional and social support.