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Hey guys, let's talk about hearing loss. Over 36 million Americans suffer from some type
of hearing loss, and that can be anything from mild or moderate to severe hearing loss-
it doesn't always mean total deafness. Now, there's a positive correlation between
age and hearing loss, which means that the older you get, the more likely you are to
suffer from some level of hearing loss. And the important thing to note is that regardless
of your hearing level, any loss of hearing can have an impact on literacy. That's because
literacy can be- can include- your ability to follow instructions, reading, writing,
and speaking. So, clearly there are some ways that hearing loss could be a barrier.
I have a couple tips for anyone that needs to create content or communications for people
that may have hearing losses.
First of all, make sure you add closed captioning to your videos. So, obviously, if you have
a hearing loss, closed captioning can help you, but even if you aren't a good enough
reader to follow all of the captioning, at least having it there can help you associate
certain words with actions going on the screen. So, it can still help improve literacy in
that way. Another really important reason is that if you're providing any instructions
or very important information, you want to make sure you have closed captioning, so someone
can read that, because they may not be able to read lips on the screen or fully interpret
what's going on based on the lip reading.
That being said, it's also a good idea to have images to associate to the words you're
using. So, right now, graphic novels are becoming very big for people with hearing loss- students
with hearing loss, because it allows them to take vocabulary and words and phrases,
and attach them to images: a scene; actions; objects. So, it's helping to improve their
literacy skills. And it doesn't have to be in a novel form: you don't have to create
a graphic novel for the information you're trying to provide, but it can be something
as simple as a small symbol to denote something. So, you'll see choking hazards, sometimes
you'll see a picture of somebody like this, or if there's a crosswalk, you'll see little
people trying to cross the street; it denotes meaning through a symbol, and sometimes that
can be very helpful for someone that has low literacy skills and a hearing impairment.
Also, you need to make sure that when you're giving instructions, you sit face-to-face
with someone, you don't cover your mouth in any way, you clearly speak at a decent level,
and you enunciate your words very clearly. Don't chew gum, and as I said, don't cover
your mouth in any way. Someone that has a hearing impairment will be relying on their
ability to look at your face and read your lips, and they also may want to lean in to
hear you better. If you're in a noisy environment, try to go to a quiet environment. And obviously,
you don't always know if someone has a hearing impairment, and you can't judge a book by
its cover, so another important idea is to make that if you're giving instructions, ask
the person to repeat them back to you, because they may not have heard you or understood
you clearly. It's very important for pharmacists and doctors these days that deal with more
aged patients. A lot of them suffer from hearing loss, as we said, and they don't always let
the doctors and pharmacists know that. So, it's important to make sure that when they
have, um, they're trying to improve low health literacy, that they make sure their patients
understand the information they're being given. Remember, part of it is follow instructions.
So, if they don't understand how to follow the instructions they're being given, then
they have low literacy skills- especially health literacy skills. So, even if you're
not in a health environment, that's good to follow.
Those are just some basic tips to help you when you're trying to convey information to
people that may have a hearing loss, and hopefully, as you create more accessible information,
you can help them improve their own literacy skills.