Comments on Life of the Hard of Hearing: Hearing/Understanding-What's the difference?

Alex ... i love the way you put it out and yes i h...

2008-02-25T14:17:00.000-08:00

Alex ... i love the way you put it out and yes i have been there done that too. One thing they ask me can you hear someone moan when having sex?? i said yeah if i have my hearing aids on or feel the vibration if they are having it full on non stop banging !! They cracked up laughing. I just know how to make them laugh with my wisecracks so use it to make them laugh. If someone ask me if im deaf i always say yep hearing loss cause it from someone spank me as a baby !!! You should see the shock on their face !!!
Cheers
Tassielady

If you think about it, almost everyone understands...

2008-02-22T06:21:00.000-08:00

If you think about it, almost everyone understands the concept of "hearing but not understanding", they just understand it in different terms.

Take a pill bottle with tiny little text font on it. Hold it 8 feet away from any person with normal eyesight. Clearly they can see the bottle, but yet why cant they read the text? Now take that same person and put a letter-size paper with 72-point font, Arial Black, that says only the word "HELLO". they can easily read that from 8 feet.

Just like text gets blurry as eyesight goes bad, words can get very "blurry" as hearing goes bad.

In my opinion, I just avoid using the term hearing...

2008-02-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, I just avoid using the term hearing-impaired because the definition of impaired said: broken, weaken, disabled or functionally poorly, inadequate or defective..and the list goes on..the whole point is that all of these definition terms relating to impaired are negative so why should we be associated to that? Even the term hearing loss signals that something is missing. I am not too crazy about this term because again it is suggesting that something that is lost. I know that we are talking about our hearing that is not complete but our life is not all about that since we gain so much with our human experiences, rather than a disability. .

I just thought you would find it interesting how the meaning deaf is defined at:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/deaf

since it said partially or wholly lacking or deprived of the sense of hearing; unable to hear

just simple as that but you know the term deaf also applies those who have partial hearing not necessarily not hearing at all.

Unfortunately, not many people realize that.

Mike-- I think the problem comes in for most of us...

2008-02-21T18:16:00.000-08:00

Mike-- I think the problem comes in for most of us who don't hear OK with a hearing aid. I have 110 db loss in speech ranges, but only a mild to moderate loss on low tones. It's a ski slope. Some sounds I hear very well with no hearing aids in. Some sounds I never hear even with hearing aids. Like Alex, I tire of explaining my complicated hearing loss. I find the best solution is to simply tell people my hearing is BAD. Without the label of "deafness or hard-of-hearing" they have to draw their own conclusions. Sometimes I say "partially deaf" or "nearly deaf" This helps them to understand how I seem to hear some things but not others, and also why I talk so well. Agree with you about using percentages. They make no sense, and it all depends on where your hearing loss is too.

First off, do not use percent to describe the amou...

2008-02-21T15:01:00.000-08:00

First off, do not use percent to describe the amount of hearing loss you have. It doesn't make any sense because loudness or decibel as it go up go up in logarithmic scale...not percentages.

"I have a 70 dB loss. This is not equal to a 70 percent loss by any means. In actual fact it means that the softest sound I can hear needs to be 10,000,000 times louder than the softest sound a person with normal hearing can hear. One out of ten million is definitely not a 70 per cent loss but would be a loss of 99.9999999%! Quite a difference, isn't it? Now you can see why we must never use percentages when talking about our hearing losses. They just do not equate. They are absolutely meaningless!"

http://www.hearinglosshelp.com/articles/decibelsvspercent.htm

Secondly, the word "deaf" connotes, as to most people, "cannot hear a dadgum thing." Just as the word, "blind" means "I cannot see at all."

Just as tere are blind people who can drive cars and are legal drivers. But legal blindness does not necessarily mean you cannot see. You can have 20/20 vision but have a restricted peripheral vision or night blindness, for example.

For me, I'd just say that I have a hearing loss if you want to avoid the whole label mess. I hear ok with the help of a hearing aid.

Deaf and hearing-impaired are the same meaning! Fr...

2008-02-21T14:30:00.000-08:00

Deaf and hearing-impaired are the same meaning! From what I see out the world that they say I am deaf which are truly deaf person, if they say I am hearing-impaired which mean they are hearing to make it looks normal like hearing people! Too embarrassed to say I am deaf and the hearing people will think that deaf is not normal and pity! That is what I saw out there.