In the video below, I have summarized an interesting research study that looked at the impact of the COVID pandemic on people with hearing loss.

During the COVID pandemic, I found myself bluffing—especially at the grocery store, with all the masks, background noise, and plastic barriers. I couldn’t understand a word. What finally helped? Just admitting to other people with hearing loss that I was using bluffing as a communication strategy. I started disclosing my hearing loss more, guessed at what people were saying, (“Did you mean ____?”), and got used to using big gestures to model how to be expressive. Sometimes I’d just shrug, like, “Well, what else can we do?” It was better than pretending I had heard.

Related post: Reducing social isolation due to hearing loss