Struggling to understand my deafness

I hope you do well with your new set of aids! Will this new pair be an in-the-ear pair as apposed to the BTE?
 
I have looked into learning. bsl british sign language but i also looked at makaton, the basic language for kids with signs and images.
But i don't know if that is used everywhere or if it is just for british kids.
It would be nice to have universal sign language rather. Than different languages
 
flyingscott58 said:
i describe myself as hard of hearing. I have a mild to moderate hearing loss in both ears, starting at around the 30 db mark in low frequencies that steadily worsens in the middle and high frequencies going down to around 55 to 60 db as the tones get higher. I've also got tinnitus but my hearing aids help with that during the day.

As for hearing with and without hearing aids. I'm getting now that I struggle to understand speech in quiet situations with more than one person if I don't wear my hearing aids and depending on the listening conditions, background noise for example, I can find it difficult in that situation to both hear and understand speech with my hearing aids on.

I'm not a natural lip-reader either, but like all of us who are deaf or hard of hearing it is easier when people recognise the fact that I don't hear well and have the decency to look at me when they speak.
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Some of that sounds like me as well. In the paragraph where you speak of understanding in quiet situation with hearing aids on and even in situations with noise with your hearing aids on or not. I know i have low frequency hearing loss and it was mild moderate but i find myself struggling a lot more than i was Things seem more muffled and fuzzy.
 
So since my first post here, I have had a bit of a rollercoaster of a journey with me learning about being deaf/Hoh and becoming more tolerant of myself and others.
I have noticed that without thinking about how life changing being Hoh/ deaf is
I am always with my husband and today we walked together deep in conversation on how things have been in the last 12/18months.
We have put in so many little steps to make life for me easier.
I always walk away from the road, my husband walked at the curbside with me away from traffic, I have also tried to get in the habit of using the little back knobs under street crossing so I can tell when it is safe for me to cross a road (even if it bleeps)
If I can not hear something. Ask the person directly or ask my husband to repeat what has been said.
If something/somebody is behind me who wants to get past my husband gently leads me to one side or tells me to stop walking or simply says a pram, wheelchair ect is waiting to get passed.
When a phone rings and I don't hear it and it is for me he automatically puts it on loud speaker.
If I ask someone to repeat what they are saying and they don't comply my husband will explain what is going on to me and tell them that either to speak up or just repeat everything back sentence by sentence.
It has been a good and a bad journey, one set of aids, then they break, I get replacement, then they just stop working. I go back to hospital and I am more deaf than what I was in September 2016 as they didn't do a full test.
Been a bit of a journey but I have had some good points as well as some bad ones.
 
I am hard of hearing as well and I find it difficult for people to speak because no one likes to turn to me as they speak my hearing aids dont help with anything and I still struggle. Thankfully I know asl
 
Yes I don't lip read, but I do use the face to try work out what a person is saying.
Sometimes just a slight movement of the mouth can make you understand a word or 2 that you missed.
I also suffer from social anxiety so looking at people is not always the easiest for me. I can normally tell you what shoes that a person was wearing but I don't remember faces or names to well.
Going to my local deaf centre today too after I receive my hearing aids (if they are open)
 
toffeekukki said:
Yes I don't lip read, but I do use the face to try work out what a person is saying.
Sometimes just a slight movement of the mouth can make you understand a word or 2 that you missed.
I also suffer from social anxiety so looking at people is not always the easiest for me. I can normally tell you what shoes that a person was wearing but I don't remember faces or names to well.
Going to my local deaf centre today too after I receive my hearing aids (if they are open)
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You might be lipreading more than you think. I am uncomfortable when listening to someone with heavy face-hair, or when I can't see their lips. One great help is using closed-captioning with the sound on the TV turned way down. Since your hearing loss is progressive (?), it would be a good idea to work on this.
 
I have found it easier to read lips with facial hair as my husband has it. So for me it is not an issue. But if you only catch some body with this now and again I can see why you would struggle.
Listening to his voice yesterday with my new aids was so fun. Once the distortion was taken down he still sounded so weird.
 
I, too, am hoh but deaf in one ear does that makes any sense? I know how you feel. The struggle is real, I deal with it every day at work, at home, anywhere I go. People don't see deaf people all that often and it makes it looks like we are invisible. We are there in plain sight, just not as noticeable as the hearing people. I wore two hearing aids when I was a very young child. My right ear is so bad that I decided to just wear one hearing aid. Having both hearing aids was SO weird that the Audiogram guy said it takes time to get used to it, how do they know what it will sound like after I " get use to it?" I just couldn't get used to it, it felt weird and sounded strange. I ended up wearing just one. The way the say things makes you wonder if they just don't like people who are deaf /hoh so they try to change us for their benefit. This is just me speaking out loud here. I am not trying to thumb down the hearing world. I just had my share of frustrations with them and it can be overbearing at times. I am trying to fit in both worlds. I sometimes think I JUST DON'T fit in anywhere. *sighs* But THE STRUGGLE IS REAL, FOR SURE!
 
In Canada, they use ASL. Australia has Auslan (uses BSL alphabet). Each country their own.
 
I learned BSL a few years ago. And you are right each country have their own style of signing.
 
I use Signbank online and I also watch everything with closed captions on tv to keep my speech-reading skills up.
 
I do too, I watched everything with closed captions. Even though I can hear some, I must have CC for me to fully understand everything that is said. :D
 
I like captions. But then I also don't, your in a public place they have a TV on. It's closed captioning, you think oh wow who needs volume, but then you realise, it makes no sense, you don't get the correct captions for (BBC News) in the UK public places are allowed to have a TV if it is the news, this to me is a bad thing. Current events. Especially breaking news should be done a lot better. Not everyone knows sign language or that country sign language.
Sorry rant over And BREATH :)
 
While I do understand what you are saying. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I get frustrated when it doesn't.
 
But when it goes bad it can go so bad. One moment your reading about a election somewhere for example.
Then half way through it will swap to the next story about cats stuck in a tree.
I get so confused that I try and guess what is going on.
It will come up in conversation late and I then get the full story that I missed and it is way to late.
I think it is worse with live news.
 
I know exactly what you mean. I hate it when you get a block of numbers and all sorts of letters in between and it gets all jammed together... that frustrates me.
 
Sometimes Ive had captions that were meant for a whole different episode in a series. Frustrating. Also, we are only just getting sign language for emergency broadcasts here and the camera doesnt even include the interpreter in the screen. They should have a separate screen insert like they have on planes and other countries news broadcast. Why is Australia so far behind?
 
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