#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.
@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 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 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?