Chronicles of a deaf Audiologist
Rehabilitation beyond hearing aids and cochlear implants: lipreading instruction, brain/auditory training and communication strategies.
Success for Hearing Better
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From the chronicles
How Can You Convince Someone to Get Hearing Aids?
Do you know someone who has hearing loss, but refuses to get hearing aids? How do you convince someone to get hearing aids? There are links between untreated hearing loss and depression, reduced earning power, and overall poorer quality of life. That’s alarming. But facts such as these will not convince someone to get hearing […]
Overcome Ridiculous Listening Conditions
I am coaching an audiologist on the LACE (Listening and Communication Enhancement) program. This week she said, “It’s ridiculous how fast the voices are in the Rapid Speech task. In real life, if someone was talking that fast, I’d say, ‘I have normal hearing and I can’t understand you, so you better slow down.” A-ha! […]
Mindset and Hearing Loss
Here’s a powerful statement that caught my eye from Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success: “How can we know where effort and time will take someone?” People tend to think of their communication and listening skills as fixed and unchanging. They don’t realize that with time and effort, both their listening and […]
Take the “Try” Out of Your Hearing Aid Trial Period
Hearing aid trial periods are sometimes mis-used. People can initiate a trial period without making a full commitment to themselves to make it work. Denise Linn wrote, “In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker hesitantly says he will ‘try’ to complete a task. Yoda, the warrior mystic, replies: ‘No! Not try. Do, or not do.’ Anytime you […]
Let’s Talk About Rules
This page is a continuation of a discussion in my e-book, Hearing Aids: We All Win When They’re In! A Guide for Significant Others. Let’s talk about rules. Here are the rules I listed in the e-book: Fess up. Don’t talk from another room. Look down at the menu. Tell people how to help. No […]
Seven Questions to Ask When Shopping For a Hearing Care Professional
Who do your friends recommend: If you have neighbours, friends, or colleagues with hearing aids, ask them where they got their hearing aids. Are they satisfied with their hearing care professional? Word-of-mouth referrals are gold for any clinic. Office Location: Is the location convenient for you? You will be forming a relationship with this clinic. […]
Are You Bluffing?
I had to laugh when I saw the “Puffy Shirt” episode of Seinfeld when Kramer’s girlfriend, who talked very quietly, asked Jerry to wear a feminine, puffy shirt that she had designed. He didn’t hear her, so he asked her to repeat. She repeated herself, but he still didn’t hear. He asked her to repeat […]
Context is a Crucial Skill for Hearing Loss
When you have hearing loss, using the context is a crucial skill. Based on where you are, what is happening at the time, and who you are with, you can guess what your conversation partner is saying. One night I was standing in a hotel lobby with a friend. We had just tried another, nicer, hotel, […]
Why Conversation Therapy?
There is a magic number when it comes to hearing aids. It’s seven. According to the Better Hearing Institute, the average person waits seven years before pursuing hearing aids. In the meantime, communication can be difficult, especially in more challenging listening environments, or with certain people who mumble, or who speak really fast. When communication […]
What in the World is Conversation Therapy?
For the next week in this blog, I’ll be exploring conversation therapy. What is conversation therapy, anyway? If you ask anyone in the hearing care field, they probably won’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve only seen one reference to conversation therapy, by Dr. Christopher Lind at Flinders University in Australia. When I read his […]