#ASL I'm the person you want to cook for a party. I'll go early, set things up and put things away later.
I'm NOT the person you want at the party unless it's a bunch of HoH or deaf people. Noisy environments are killers for the hard of hearing.
I got up and walked away while they were banging boxes of jingle bells as a game. What game? Got me.
The people who know I don't hear well can't remember. Even the person who teaches ASL.
People wonder why I almost never go to parties.
@J_Windrow Please forgive me if this is a dumb or insensitive question. I truly mean no offense. Why would you be uncomfortable at a loud party? Hearing people might not be able to hear and understand one another, but wouldn't you read lips as well as if it were silent? Some deaf people have trouble speaking understandably, which might be worse with noise, but the same goes for people with a strong accent. Clearly I'm missing something.
@J_Windrow Wow. No I hadn't read anything before the nice reference you gave. I always thought of lip reading as a hard won always accurate skill most deaf people learned. It's always presented as a near magical art for eavesdropping on the corrupt politicians plotting together, shy royals discussing His Majesty, etc. Yet the examples in your article make perfect common sense, more so than some magical ability. Thanks
@walterbays #ASL you're welcome. I'm always educating people. Most people with hearing loss do no speech reading.
I have one friend who is very accurate with it, but I think it's a function of her high functioning autism in conjunction with the hearing loss.
Check out YouTube re: misheard lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i30s2sHWLBs
This is my life. Looking at people and thinking WTF did they just say???
@walterbays #ASL I took a friend to a conference where all communication was in ASL with interpreters for the hearing. He was stunned. He'd never felt so excluded. Five years later he was an expert in ASL.
And I don't read lips. It's too hard.
From my perspective, all you hearing folks should learn ASL as a second language.
By age 75, 75% of Americans have significant hearing loss. They wish they knew ASL and wish others knew it.
https://www.mtapractice.com/2016/12/12/lip-reading-misconceptions/
2/2
@walterbays #ASL also, there are Deaf (born Deaf to Deaf Parents) and they may not speak at all as they are part of Deaf Culture and use ASL and texts to communicate.
There are deaf who are people who lose all their hearing later in life but don't know ASL and are not a part of Deaf Culture.
There are also people like me who lost much of their hearing pre lingually (I should never have learned effective speech, but did). I'm Hard of Hearing (HOH) and we also aren't provided with ASL.
@J_Windrow (probably continuing my cluelessness) Since very few hearing people speak ASL, how about tech assistance? I've had conversations before via Google translate where I'd say something in English, the phone repeats in, say, German. They reply and the phone repeats in English. It would also show the conversation in big letters. 1on1 someone could dictate text to you. Albeit, you'd have to type on the tiny keyboard. Might there be an ASL to English app?
@walterbays #ASL anyone can learn ASL free on lifeprint.com - it is taught by Deaf ASL professors at a university.
Otter.ai is pretty good. Do you think it would work at a noisy party? Nope. Because everyone is talking all at once. My brain can't filter all the noise out. Neither can a computer. It's strictly one person at a time.
In Zoom you can cut the mic off so only one person can speak. Try that in a room with 15 writers.
BTW, do you think I don't know anything about being HoH?
@walterbays #ASL I've been HoH since I was 18 months old. I have a hearing aid so high tech that it actually modifies the hertz into ranges I can hear. I wear about $3k of equipment when I go out so I can hear what's going on. I can't actually hear birds, but I can hear them with this system, although they sound like Cher.
I realize you're trying to educate me about everything I don't know. But you're the one who doesn't understand.
@J_Windrow Sorry, don't mean to mansplain hearing loss. I am definitely not trying to educate you, rather I am learning. Many of my questions are of the form, what about...? Being an engineer they're, what about more tech?
@walterbays #ASL - check out Phonak's website. They are what I use in terms of tech and I have remote mic systems, etc.
We have all sorts of tech. Deaf/deaf who are in the larger community are early adopters of tech.
People who lose hearing later in life are often in deep trouble. I know someone who has no smartphone, no computer, no hearing aid. She has TV and a regular phone she can't use. She's in her late 80s.
@walterbays #ASL my late husband was a computer engineer/programmer. He ran large computer systems while blind using text-to-speech software.
I know techs look for tech solutions.
My iPhone can caption my phone calls (which go through a computer into my bluetooth hearing aid).
But one thing it can't do that your brain can - it can sort out all the different channels of sound. My brain values banging drums the same as the human voice.
@walterbays #ASL - Everyone who isn't deaf or hard of hearing tries to educate people who are deaf/Deaf/hard of hearing and never stop to realize that we work with technicians who are up to date on all the latest technologies.
It's not a mansplaining thing it's the belief that if we just had more information or technology that things would be better.
That said, not everyone can afford specialty care. I see my tech twice a year. I have an audiologist and an ENT.
@walterbays #ASL you're talking about an entire range of issues. I'm HoH but sometimes functionally deaf.
It's incredibly hard for me to cope in a noisy environment. I don't go out to eat, I insist on accommodations at meetings.
I also think it's rude if you know someone can't hear and no accommodation is made. It's an invisible disability so burying us in sound is like taking the cane from a blind person.
https://www.healthyhearing.com/report/52807-Hearing-loss-and-listening-fatigue
@walterbays #ASL I'm one of moderators and instructors of the writing group whose party I attended today. If I wasn't in the hierarchy I wouldn't have gone.
That said, I'm constantly reminding everyone I can't hear. Once I wore a shirt saying that and people still forgot. It's like: I know you can read and it's right on my shirt.
I provide specialized packets for deaf/HoH writers so that everything in the lecture is in writing.
I insist we accommodate all disabilities.
@J_Windrow A group or company should be able to accommodate, an individual usually lacks the means. At supermarket my bagger was HoH, I guessed when she didn't respond to my statement that she could put groceries back in the cart and I would pack into my roller bag. (Too much trouble to ask of a bagger). She asked me something I couldn't understand but accompanied it with gestures. I tried to explain with gestures that she needn't bother.... (cont')
@walterbays #ASL Have you heard of CART? When I was practicing law the courts provided me with CART in the courtroom. It's still done, but I'm thinking Otter.ai may move into the field... except, if I had a deaf/Deaf client there really needs to be (1) a large screen to show the words and (2) a legal interpreter for the Deaf (if they sign) and sometimes (3) a Deaf interpreter to explain the legal interpreters signs to the Deaf/deaf client.
@J_Windrow No, but I see CART now. Seems like it would be much more expensive than machine transcription, but without the enormous blunders robots sometimes make, rather important for a courtroom. The California court web page on CART notes a possibility of using newer tech like assisted reality glasses. Imagine someday glasses that show you ASL for those like me who don't speak it.
@walterbays #ASL CART relies upon a human transcriptionist who loads her machine with sounds. It's like shorthand. Each sort of court hearing has a language of its own and sometimes things come up where the right sound package isn't there and the transcriptionist has to make do.
Generally tons better than AI, but the AI is improving.
Otter.ai is now being used by educational institutions to caption online lectures with a transcript for the student.
@walterbays #ASL I don't go to movies, but my Deaf/deaf friends who do say that half the time the glasses that show cc's are broken. I'm not holding out for the courts to get VR glasses.
The problem isn't us communicating with you. The problem is hearing people not communicating in a way we can understand.
@walterbays #ASL FYI, I'm a writer, a published author, and I don't need someone to speak in ASL to me if they can text. However, in a party situation where it's noisy, then I'd rather people did sign.
Frankly, I can hold conversations with people across a two lane highway using ASL.
However, where I am now has almost no Deaf community. In Boston ASL was common as there's a huge Deaf community there and in Framingham.
@walterbays #ASL what I do not understand is why people cannot remember someone has a disability.
People complain constantly that I don't talk to them. When I walk the dog I wear a shirt that says I'm HOH. Are they too stupid to understand what Hard of Hearing means?
My sister says they forget.
I call them toxic because they can't be bothered to read the lettering on the shirt.
Considering, I'm just as happy not to deal with jerks.
@J_Windrow So at a party the problem isn't too much noise, but too many overlapping channels at once. It's something of a problem for hearing folk too, people talking over one another, and I can't understand the interesting author because two loudmouths are shouting over her. If we could get away to a quiet corner and talk 1 on 1 it would be better. Kinda like texting with you now. Anyway, thanks for your patience.
@walterbays #ASL people say, oh, it happens to everyone. It's hard for you, but your brain is used to sorting sounds.
Your brain values the sound of a human voice over a barking dog. It values that voice over the sound of a car.
I lack directionality as well. One ear. You can't go into a corner and talk to me in a noisy room because I'm overwhelmed. My brain doesn't sort relevance at all.
Men's voices are easier.
@walterbays #ASL - the hard of hearing woman and the blind guy were quite the couple too. I learned all about the tech accommodations for the blind such as Jaws For Windows and he got to learn how to communicate with someone with a hearing deficit that gradually got worse.
Tech use among the blind and deaf/blind is also high. D/B are are huge on using iPhones interfacing with braille writers and telling them someone is at the door, etc.
Not all deaf/blind are totally deaf/blind.
@J_Windrow Re HoH/blind couple: kind of puts it in context when other married couples complain about their difficulties communicating.
@walterbays all relationships take work. He had excellent hearing. I was his sighted guide. He paid attention to enunciation of words. Sometimes he had to spell a word so I could clarify.
People have to invest in communication. It’s not easy. We’re not mind readers. Too many people expect the other person to just know things.
@J_Windrow ...She packed everything nicely in the roller. I don't know if it was because she thought I had asked for that, or if she's just an "above and beyond" type person. I doubt she understood my thanks, especially given what you say about lip reading. I'm sure she understood my smile, which she returned.
@walterbays #ASL most people who can't hear don't speak ASL. Most deaf can read language. Text messaging what all of us prefer. It levels the playing field.
There's no need for an ASL to English app.
Text messaging works just fine. However, since ASL is not English and most words in ASL are not finger spelled that means many deaf/Deaf don't have good spelling.
@walterbays #ASL people who can't hear guess. They also nod.
Deaf people often do the "deaf nod" with cops and nod themselves into prison.
I fall into doing the deaf nod. I also anticipate what is going to be asked of me.
If someone's job is to bag groceries and take them out then that's what they'll do.
"Blindness cuts us off from things, but deafness cuts us off from people," ~ Helen Keller,
@walterbays #ASL Ahh, the fallacy of lipreading. If one is extremely good at it one might get 25%of what it is said. Assuming the person is standing close enough that you can stare at their mouth while they're talking. Which tends to freak people the fuck out.
Not only that, normal speech is too difficult to speech read because people talk too fast.
Have you ever READ anything about lipreading? Are you aware that most Deaf/deaf don't bother. We tell people we can't hear them.
1/2