7 – Hearing Loss as a Communication Disorder
Because hearing loss is a communication disorder, it affects both the individual who has it and those who are attempting to speak to him or her — the communication partners (CPs). The perspectives and experiences of both the person who is talking (the speaker) and the person who is attempting to listen (the listener) must be taken into consideration during assessment, treatment and follow-up because
- CPs can facilitate or inhibit the tendency of a person who has hearing loss to take effective action to deal with it.
- The communication partner may provide valuable information that the person who has the hearing loss may not be willing or able to provide.
- Both the speaker and the listener contribute to communication problems.
- The cooperation of both is necessary in order to improve communication.
Two major hearing loss-related problems affecting both the listener and the speaker include:
- Not understanding — The person who has hearing loss did not understand what was said and knew he/she had not understood, and
- Misunderstanding — The person who has hearing loss thought he or she understood correctly, but, in fact, did not correctly understand what was said.
Approaching Communication Problems
When a person who has hearing loss knows he or she does not understand what is being said, that should be easily correctable provided the person knows the various causes of communication problems, pinpoints the cause of this particular problem, and offers a solution to it. Unfortunately, most people do not know how to do this and when communication problems occur, many people resort to bluffing, withdrawing and/or becoming emotionally upset. It is, then, very important that both the people who are hard of hearing and their communication partners learn what to do about the following situations:
- Person who is hard of hearing doesn’t know that the communication partner is talking. Communication partners need to learn to get the attention of the person who has hearing loss before beginning to talk, and to be close enough so their faces can be clearly seen.
- Person who has hearing loss doesn’t understand what is being said and knows it. People who have less than normal hearing need to learn what to do to correct the situation as soon as they become aware that they do not understand what is being said. That means identifying the cause of the problem and suggesting a solution instead of bluffing or leaving the scene.
People who have hearing loss need to practice feeding back the essentials of what they heard, especially, who (names), when (times and dates), where (locations), and other spoken numbers. Otherwise, neither they nor the person speaking will know whether what was said has been correctly understood.