Back to School

I can already feel the calm before the storm. Driving around town this week and taking the bus, you can feel that things are quieter than usual. With Labour Day next Monday, that means school starts up again next Tuesday and the roads and buses will be packed.

If you're Deaf or Hard of Hearing, you may need to prepare a few things before the semester starts rolling into top gear.

• Hopefully by now, you've got all your books in order and tuition is ready to hand in.
• Visit your college or university's Disability Resource Centre to make sure you have all your accommodations in place. These accommodations could include sign language interpreters, oral interpreters, notetakers, and/or FM Systems
• You may need to get a Verification of Permanent Disability Form for the new school year and get your doctor and audiologist to fill in the appropriate sections.
• If you have hearing aids and/or an FM System, you may want to book an appointment with your audiologist or dispenser to check everything over and make sure things are working for the semester. Because once your in the midst of midterms, you're not going to have time to visit the clinic.
• Remember to get to your classrooms early so that you can find the right seat for you. It may be the one right at the front or one with the best sightline of the instructor. Use your best judgement.

If you need to get things done, you better get moving. You only have a few more days to get things together. Good luck in the new school year!

Tuesday Tips - Theatres

Many years ago, we used to cheap ticket Tuesdays in Canada. Well now, the cheap tickets have long disappeared and the Big Sound, Big Movie experience has inflated their prices.

However, going to the movie theatre for a hard-of-hearing person can be difficult. The sound may big and loud, but often it is not intelligible to those with hearing loss. A person may have hearing aids, but the aids sometimes make the sounds louder, but the speech remains unintelligible.

Some movie theatres have equipment to help the hard-of-hearing, but most don't work with hearing aids. The following are the two most common devices used in theatres in Metro Vancouver.

Infrared (IR)
Infrared systems transmit sound in the form of invisible light waves. A transmitter is located at the front of the theatre and individuals can special wireless receivers. The receivers take the light and transform it into sound. The receiver is connected to earphones or headphones that one will place onto one's ears.

If you have a mild to moderate hearing loss, these devices work fine. However, if you have a severe or profound hearing loss, these devices give inadequate amplification.

Theatres like the Queen Elizabeth, Stanley, Orpheum and Arts Club Theatres typically have these available upon request.

Rear Window Captioning (RWC)
Rear Window Captioning (RWC) is a patented captioning system that used strictly in Silver City, Colossus, and ScotiaBank Theatres, which are all under the Cineplex family of movie cinemas. Deaf and hard-of-hearing guests obtain a clear plastic panel from the cashier. The panel can then be attached to the drink holder. The panel reflects an LED text display in the back of the theatre. The guest is supposed to adjust the reflective panel until the words are comfortably displayed below or at the bottom of their view of the movie screen.

RWC is handy to catch all of the dialogue of a movie. It works in a style similar to subtitles or captioning for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing on DVDs. Only limitations are that the theatre often has very few panels available. Also, only one theatre in each complex is equipped for RWC. So check your local listings to see what movie has RWC.

Tuesday Tips: Planning Ahead – Visualizing the Scenario

Imagine you were visiting Montreal and you know some French, enough to get by. However, you haven’t used your French in eons. You want to go to a local boulangerie to buy some fresh baguettes. If you’re like me, you would practice in your head exactly what you want to say (I want one baguette, please – en francais, of course). Then you are going to practice what they might say back to you (That will be $4.95 – again, en francais). Of course, you may want to practice something that’s totally off topic (Where did you get that dress), but that wouldn’t fit the context (or maybe it will).

Visualization is a technique that is often used by athletes in preparation for difficult maneuvers. We can use the same when approaching difficult communication situations.

• Envision the scenario that is about to happen. Important visual and aural cues are missing with hearing loss, but the brain can fill in the gaps if you know what is happening.
  
• Anticipate what is going to be said. In a place like boulangerie, there are certain phrases that are commonly used. Practice those phrases. The practice would help your brain to be prepared for what is about to be said.
  
• Different situations means different possibilities. So what you might expect in the bakery would be different from what is said in a doctor’s office from what is said in a restaurant. Context is everything.

Visualize the scenario and anticipate the speech and your brain will be warmed up for each and every difficult situation. Just like many things, planning ahead can help you to avoid unwanted pitfalls.

Tuesday Tips: If you don’t tell them, who else will?

One of the frustrations of living with a hearing loss is that the vast majority of people do not know how to talk to you. Some assume they just need to yell. Well, that’s just plain embarrassing. Some people just talk normally, but then that can be too fast or too soft for someone who is hard-of-hearing. People just don’t know how best to speak to you.

That’s where you have to step up to the plate and be specific and polite about what works best for you. In general, there are a few pointers you can give to your conversation partner.

• Speak clearly and a little slower. A lot of people simply slur and blur their words as they speak, nowadays. Simply slowing down a little and enunciating clearly can make a world of difference between understanding and complete confusion.
  
• Speak a little louder. People don’t need to yell, but they do often need to just speak with a little more volume than they are used to.
  
• Look at me when speaking. There’s no substitute for direct speech. When the voice is going in the other direction or is directed an office desk, it is significantly harder to understand.
  
• Get closer. Did you know that for every metre, that the energy in a sound is cut in half? So it doesn’t take too much distance for sound to start being hard to hear. Don’t forget to remove any barriers to speech. That includes food in the mouth.
  
• Get my attention before talking. If a person starts talking before they have your full attention, then they will likely have to start over from the beginning again. If they get your attention first, there can be less repetition required.
  

Use your best judgment on how best to phrase these pointers. Don’t forget to use your P’s and Q’s. Nobody likes a bossy tone. But remember, if you don’t tell them how to communicate with you, nobody will.

Tuesday Tips: Your Attention, Please

People often say, “You have a hearing aid. You should hear me just fine.” Well, sadly enough, it’s not just fine. Hearing aids help you to hear better, but they are certainly not a cure for hearing loss.

It’s important that you get people’s attention and that others get your attention before starting a conversation. If you’ve missed the first few words and then you realize somebody is talking to you, you are already feeling lost.

• Others can tap you on the shoulder or flick the lights to get your attention. Then you can face the speaker and hear what they have to say right from the start.
• Avoid talking from room-to-room or over barriers. Conversations should be carried out in the same room and, preferably, face-to-face. Voices just don’t carry very well between walls nor down hallways.
• Let others know that they will have to face for you to understand better. Explain that you have difficulty hearing and ask them to talk directly to you. There is no substitute for direct speech. Otherwise, you’ll hear the receptionist or cashier talking straight into their computer screens