"Hard of Hearing"

Beach girl said:
As I wrote above, I rarely use either term (hard-of-hearing or hearing-impaired) when speaking to describe myself. I've used the abbreviation HofH on this site more in the last few days then I have probably ever used that phrase in face-to-face conversation.

I usually say "I wear (or use) hearing aids." Straight-forward and factual, and no one has to parse through what it means.
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I don't know. There is a continuum of function in those who use HA. Not really clear cut. I know people with 105dB loss that use HA and people with 50dB loss that use HA. Plus, level of loss is not really predictive of the benefit one receives from an HA.
 
Oh yeah.

Wait till eye implants come out, we'll have hard of sight and the plethora of terms related to it.
 
Plus, level of loss is not really predictive of the benefit one receives from an HA.
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That's true, but in most cases, people don't really care about exactly what your degree of hearing loss is or what benefit you get. In my experience, they need to know what the situation is and what they need to do about it. So, at the hairdresser, I say "I use hearing aids and I will not be able to hear you once I take them out, so we have to talk about the haircut now, before I go to be shampooed."

OK, clear enough. No problem. We talk when I can still hear and communicate, I take 'em out, proceed to shampoo, cut, dry, done.

In a restaurant, if the hostess has a question about where to seat us, I might say "I use hearing aids, and it's easier for me to hear if I'm in a booth where there is a wall behind me."

OK, done.

Same for almost everything. No one (other than my audiologist) cares whether I have a 50db loss or 90db loss or whatever. The numbers are meaningless to most people. What they can do right then and there to proceed with whatever the activity is, is what they care about.
 
Beach girl said:
Why is the phrase "hearing impaired" so bad? I guess I consider myself HofH or hearing impaired, doesn't matter to me what it's called, but I hardly ever verbalize either phrase.

I usually just say "I need to use hearing aids, so I won't be able to hear you.." and then whatever applies: "on the phone" or "after I take them out" (like at the hairdresser's), or "in a noisy restaurant" (if making plans to meet someone someplace), or "unless I can see your face" if someone is trying to talk to me but is looking elsewhere, or whatever the situation might be.
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I dont like being viewed as defective.
 
Beach girl said:
That's true, but in most cases, people don't really care about exactly what your degree of hearing loss is or what benefit you get. In my experience, they need to know what the situation is and what they need to do about it. So, at the hairdresser, I say "I use hearing aids and I will not be able to hear you once I take them out, so we have to talk about the haircut now, before I go to be shampooed."

OK, clear enough. No problem. We talk when I can still hear and communicate, I take 'em out, proceed to shampoo, cut, dry, done.

In a restaurant, if the hostess has a question about where to seat us, I might say "I use hearing aids, and it's easier for me to hear if I'm in a booth where there is a wall behind me."

OK, done.

Same for almost everything. No one (other than my audiologist) cares whether I have a 50db loss or 90db loss or whatever. The numbers are meaningless to most people. What they can do right then and there to proceed with whatever the activity is, is what they care about.
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Those explanations contain quite a bit more information that just, "I use hearing aids.":P
 
You've got no quarrel with me, if that works for you. If I said to someone "I'm deaf," they would think I could not hear them at all. With my HAs, that is not true. So it would be misleading and confusing.

We're all different and come to different ways of expressing ourselves and our needs. My way works for me; it seems to make sense to the people I'm communicating with and gets the job done. I tend to be very pragmatic; if it works to accomplish the task at hand, I'm happy.

Those explanations contain quite a bit more information that just, "I use hearing aids."
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Sorry, I thought you had already seen my post #10, where I already explained the long version, if you will. So when I repeated the short version, I was just trying not to repeat myself too much. But then when you asked, I went into the whole long-version again.
 
Beach girl said:
You've got no quarrel with me, if that works for you. If I said to someone "I'm deaf," they would think I could not hear them at all. With my HAs, that is not true. So it would be misleading and confusing.

We're all different and come to different ways of expressing ourselves and our needs. My way works for me; it seems to make sense to the people I'm communicating with and gets the job done. I tend to be very pragmatic; if it works to accomplish the task at hand, I'm happy.



Sorry, I thought you had already seen my post #10, where I already explained the long version, if you will. So when I repeated the short version, I was just trying not to repeat myself too much. But then when you asked, I went into the whole long-version again.
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If it works for you, fine. Stay with it. But those who have been dealing with their deafness and society's perceptions for a lengthy time have grown weary of explaining themselves over and over and over and over.... Especially when anything other than "I'm deaf" results in unreasonable expectations and misunderstandings.
 
Well, I've only been dealing with it for 30 years, so guess I'm still a newbie at all this, and haven't learned much yet. Sorry.
 
Beach girl said:
Well, I've only been dealing with it for 30 years, so guess I'm still a newbie at all this, and haven't learned much yet. Sorry.
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I don't think time has anything to do with learning. After all, 30 years of dealing with this, and you still don't have much knowledge of Deaf Culture.:cool2:
 
Beach girl said:
You've got no quarrel with me, if that works for you. If I said to someone "I'm deaf," they would think I could not hear them at all. With my HAs, that is not true. So it would be misleading and confusing.

We're all different and come to different ways of expressing ourselves and our needs. My way works for me; it seems to make sense to the people I'm communicating with and gets the job done. I tend to be very pragmatic; if it works to accomplish the task at hand, I'm happy.



Sorry, I thought you had already seen my post #10, where I already explained the long version, if you will. So when I repeated the short version, I was just trying not to repeat myself too much. But then when you asked, I went into the whole long-version again.
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I was born profoundly deaf and identified myself as hearing impaired growing up because I was taught that way. People treated me as someone who was incapable of not doing much despite my hours and hours spent working on speech skills so I could fit in the hearing world. I found my Deaf identity when I learned ASL at 25 years old and since then, I have abandonded that label. Life has been much easier for me since then which I found very interesting. It was like subconsicously by labeling myself as "hearing impaired" I truly believed that I was defective and as a result, that was the message I portrayed to hearing people hence getting treated as someone not as capable as they were.
 
shel90 said:
I was born profoundly deaf and identified myself as hearing impaired growing up because I was taught that way. People treated me as someone who was incapable of not doing much despite my hours and hours spent working on speech skills so I could fit in the hearing world. I found my Deaf identity when I learned ASL at 25 years old and since then, I have abandonded that label. Life has been much easier for me since then which I found very interesting. It was like subconsicously by labeling myself as "hearing impaired" I truly believed that I was defective and as a result, that was the message I portrayed to hearing people hence getting treated as someone not as capable as they were.
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Exactly. That is the message you internalized, and the image that you projected as a result. Not only that, it was a part of your self concept, so that you even treated yourself as inferior. I cannot be supportive of any terminology that does that to people.
 
I don't think time has anything to do with learning. After all, 30 years of dealing with this, and you still don't have much knowledge of Deaf Culture.
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Let's look at our respective areas of expertise from another angle: you seem to be putting yourself out here as some sort of expert on hearing loss and identity issues and Deaf culture, and if you are that expert, fine, I applaud you for that.

However, you seem to have very little understanding of those of us who are late-deafened, functioned in the hearing world, and still function in the hearing world, because, due to the miracles of technology we have today, we can, mostly, hear.

Why would you feel it necessary to be condescending about my personal choices for what works for me, in my life? I'm not comparing myself to anyone else, saying that my method should be used by anyone else, that how I think of myself should be how anyone else thinks of themselves, none of that.

I'm speaking strictly for myself, and assume that others are speaking for themselves. What works for me might not be applicable for someone with a more severe loss; what works for them might not be appropriate for me.

When I first got hearing aids, I didn't immediately change my identity in life, any more than when I first got glasses. Both those things are tools to enable me to live my life more fully; neither the tools nor the hearing/sight issues they are correcting have much to do with the way I identify myself in life.
 
Beach girl said:
Let's look at our respective areas of expertise from another angle: you seem to be putting yourself out here as some sort of expert on hearing loss and identity issues and Deaf culture, and if you are that expert, fine, I applaud you for that.

However, you seem to have very little understanding of those of us who are late-deafened, functioned in the hearing world, and still function in the hearing world, because, due to the miracles of technology we have today, we can, mostly, hear.

Why would you feel it necessary to be condescending about my personal choices for what works for me, in my life? I'm not comparing myself to anyone else, saying that my method should be used by anyone else, that how I think of myself should be how anyone else thinks of themselves, none of that.

I'm speaking strictly for myself, and assume that others are speaking for themselves. What works for me might not be applicable for someone with a more severe loss; what works for them might not be appropriate for me.

When I first got hearing aids, I didn't immediately change my identity in life, any more than when I first got glasses. Both those things are tools to enable me to live my life more fully; neither the tools nor the hearing/sight issues they are correcting have much to do with the way I identify myself in life.
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I have a great deal of understanding of those who are late deafened. Have you visited the support thread created for just that topic? I am the one who created it simply because the issues for late deafened are so different from those who are prelingually deafened. I also work with individuals with all forms of acquired disability and the adjustment issues that result. Likewise, I work with those who are prelingually deaf, and I see the damage that is still being done to children by attempts from the hearing world to force them into a mold that would make them appear as hearing as possible.

Where the lack of understanding seems to be apparent is in the lack of understanding of the cultural concerns of those that Id as Deaf, and the historical oppression that has occurred for those who are prelingually deafened. When you question the existence of, or the value of, their cultural perspective you belittle that which has been life saving for so many. A great value is placed on Deaf Culture by the majority in this forum. Please respect that. Ifyou wish to discuss those issues, please take the time to inform yourself of such before commenting. In that way, it will not appear that you are belittling the experience of so many.

Regarding your last paragraph: it is evident that your deafness is not a part of your identity. You consider yourself to still be hearing, but with an impairment in that function. What we are trying to explain to you is that the vast majority of the members here do not share that view of themselves. Their identity is as Deaf, and as a consequence, they have a very different perspective from someone who sees themselves as having an impairment, but still being "mostly hearing". It is a different perspective, a different set of values, a different set of tradtitions, and an altogether different way of life. They have had their fill of those who have tried to make them "more hearing" or referred to them as "impaired" in any way. So, when you enter into a thread that is devoted to cultural issues, you need to be very aware of, and sensitive to, that. When you put forth your perspective of living your life as a hearing person with an impairment in function in response to remarks regarding cultural views, it appears that you are simply perpetuating the same old, same old audist ramblings that have created so much harm for so many.
 
When you question the existence of, or the value of, their cultural perspective you belittle that which has been life saving for so many.
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Where have I ever questioned that? Sometimes I think you've got me confused with someone else.
 
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