joycem137
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- Sep 28, 2011
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Thanks for the thoughts, everyone.
Having only been diagnosed last Tuesday, I'm still kinda figuring a lot of this out. I'm actually not sure myself just how good or bad my comprehension is in any given situation. Or, at least, I wasn't sure until I recently started paying attention to such and learning more about it. Before that, I just felt vaguely uncomfortable and awkward in some situations.
It's like the one poster said about never realizing how easy it was for hearing people to hear. Before recently, I thought hearing was this active, difficult task for everyone. I never really realized that it could be *easy* and not involve lots of guesswork and fill-in-the-blank games. (I've been finding ASL to be positively wonderful on that front, so far.)
With a little more research and self-observation, I think my experiences are similar to those of someone with "mild" to "moderate" sensorineural/conductive hearing loss, in terms of how I relate to other people and speech, and depending on the situation.
It's really weird, right? Because my sensorineural/conductive hearing is actually really good. Above average, the audiologist said. So situations where my CAPD isn't being triggered, I hear very well. But start piling on the noise, fast speech, etc., and I quickly lose comprehension.
Depending on a number of circumstances, my experience of speech comprehension can range from that of a typical hearing person to resembling someone with moderate hearing loss. In general, though, my experience tends to resemble a "mild hearing loss.". It's a bizarre mix and a significant range of speech comprehension ability that makes it hard to quantify my experience using the language of hearing loss. It is extremely situational for me.
Another poster on this thread indicated that my fluctuating ability to understand speech and function as hearing makes the label "hard of hearing" accurate for me. Due to the range of comprehension ability that I have, there are some situations where I can function as hearing, others where it is difficult and requires effort and focus if I want to function as hearing, and still others where I simply cannot function as hearing. In those situations, especially some group conversations in noisy environments such as parties or restaurants, I can't understand what anyone's saying at all.
Based on the different responses here about some people saying that people with APD are HoH if they want to label themselves that way, whereas others want to make clear the distinction between APD and deafness... Well, it gives me a lot to think about, but I think it gives me enough to manage navigating both Deaf and Hearing spaces with sufficient accuracy and tact to be understood and not offend.
Having only been diagnosed last Tuesday, I'm still kinda figuring a lot of this out. I'm actually not sure myself just how good or bad my comprehension is in any given situation. Or, at least, I wasn't sure until I recently started paying attention to such and learning more about it. Before that, I just felt vaguely uncomfortable and awkward in some situations.
It's like the one poster said about never realizing how easy it was for hearing people to hear. Before recently, I thought hearing was this active, difficult task for everyone. I never really realized that it could be *easy* and not involve lots of guesswork and fill-in-the-blank games. (I've been finding ASL to be positively wonderful on that front, so far.)
With a little more research and self-observation, I think my experiences are similar to those of someone with "mild" to "moderate" sensorineural/conductive hearing loss, in terms of how I relate to other people and speech, and depending on the situation.
It's really weird, right? Because my sensorineural/conductive hearing is actually really good. Above average, the audiologist said. So situations where my CAPD isn't being triggered, I hear very well. But start piling on the noise, fast speech, etc., and I quickly lose comprehension.
Depending on a number of circumstances, my experience of speech comprehension can range from that of a typical hearing person to resembling someone with moderate hearing loss. In general, though, my experience tends to resemble a "mild hearing loss.". It's a bizarre mix and a significant range of speech comprehension ability that makes it hard to quantify my experience using the language of hearing loss. It is extremely situational for me.
Another poster on this thread indicated that my fluctuating ability to understand speech and function as hearing makes the label "hard of hearing" accurate for me. Due to the range of comprehension ability that I have, there are some situations where I can function as hearing, others where it is difficult and requires effort and focus if I want to function as hearing, and still others where I simply cannot function as hearing. In those situations, especially some group conversations in noisy environments such as parties or restaurants, I can't understand what anyone's saying at all.
Based on the different responses here about some people saying that people with APD are HoH if they want to label themselves that way, whereas others want to make clear the distinction between APD and deafness... Well, it gives me a lot to think about, but I think it gives me enough to manage navigating both Deaf and Hearing spaces with sufficient accuracy and tact to be understood and not offend.
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