New research on hearing and communication

October 2024

Mini-golf outing

Denver Chapter members will meet Saturday, October 5 at 1 pm at the Family Sports outdoor miniature golf course, for a fun afternoon, weather permitting. The fee is $5. The sports center is at Arapahoe and Peoria, 6901 S Peoria St., Centennial, CO 80112. To reserve a spot, please contact Dave Mitchell at davmit114@comcast.net or text 720-329-1911.

Do you hear what I hear?

By Paula DeJohn

“You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone,” Joni Mitchell used to sing. Anyone who has lost some or all of their hearing can relate to that. Gradually, or suddenly, the sounds they have taken for granted, pleasant or otherwise, fade to silence. Meanwhile, people who have been deaf since birth or early childhood may feel no such sense of loss, but rather a kind of camaraderie with other people who communicate not with sound, but with signs.

Now there’s research to explain the disparity in world views between hearing and deaf people, and it comes from someone who has been a mentor to the Denver Chapter: Katrina (Katie) Cue, Ed.D. As Outreach and Consultative Services Manager and Interim Co-Director for the Colorado Commission for the Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and DeafBlind, Katie has been to some of our meetings, and has been a source of ideas and information.

Her study, published online in June in the Journal of Disability and Society, is titled Defining hearing culture in context of Deaf culture: A grounded theory examination. (It predates, and is not related to, her job with the commission.) Using focus group interviews that included deaf people and hearing professionals who worked with deaf people, she examined how they identified their own hearing status. “Ultimately, a definition of hearing culture emerged from the data,” she reports.

Following are specific passages from the study that shed light on how deaf people perceive hearing people, and how hearing people (don’t) perceive deaf people. While the study concentrated on the experience of people who rely mainly on sign language, the lessons learned can enlighten the hard-of-hearing as well, and it seems we share many of the assumptions and frustrations of both groups.

Katie’s  perspective

As a deaf individual navigating both Deaf and hearing worlds, my experiences prompted me to question the dynamics of Deaf and hearing cultures. I realized that while Deaf culture has been extensively studied, the hearing world is often only mentioned in relation to the Deaf world. To fully engage in Deaf studies, it is crucial to explicitly name and understand the influence of the hearing world on disability studies and hearing culture.

The meaning of ‘quiet’

A key difference between Deaf and hearing people is their sensory orientation. Deaf individuals rely on visual and tactile senses for communication, using sign language, body language, facial expressions, and spatial awareness. Hearing people primarily use auditory and verbal communication and have more muted movements. The concept of “being quiet” also differs: For deaf people, it involves minimizing visual and vibrational disturbances, while for hearing people, it means reducing sound intensity.

Touching as communication

While hearing people bond through shared auditory experiences, deaf people use touch to maintain presence and continue conversations smoothly. However, touch can lead to misunderstandings with hearing people. Examples include a deaf student tapping a police officer during the Gallaudet University protests in 2006 which was misinterpreted as a threatening gesture; a deaf mother resolving a dispute with a hearing friend of her child using gestures that were misinterpreted by that child’s parents as threatening and leading to the police being called; and a sexual harassment suit in Florida filed by a hearing co-worker who misinterpreted their deaf colleague’s “excessive touching”.

Noise policing

Noise presents a significant source of cultural conflict and misunderstanding in this study. Deaf participants may lack awareness of their volume, contrasting with the sensitivity of hearing individuals to noise. Noise policing can be seen as a way of asserting power or informing deaf individuals of their violations of hearing norms. The concept of “noise” extends beyond auditory stimuli and can include visual disruptions such as flickering lights or waving hands in one’s visual field.

Deaf people are not confined to a silent world; in fact, the Deaf world can be quite noisy from a hearing world standpoint. For example, laughter was discussed, with some deaf individuals criticized for their loud laughter, contrasting with hearing individuals’ controlled laughter.

Deaf babies, hearing parents

Statistics show the majority of deaf babies are born to hearing parents. Despite all of the research and evidence of the harm of delayed language acquisition and the fact that there are numerous benefits to learning sign language as soon as possible, parents are often lay hearing people who are ignorant about what it means to be deaf.

Therefore, they are more likely to attend to doctors’ advice, which aligns with the medical model of disability in desiring to “fix” the deaf child. Moreover, these parents often do not consult deaf community members who tend to “know better” due to their lived experience; the result is that deaf babies frequently end up language-deprived.

Deaf people are often left to wonder why the predominant focus on “fixing” the deaf baby to make sure they can hear and speak trumps allowing that deaf baby to reap the benefits of sign language and the richness of language and Deaf culture.

The impact of ignorance

Even with good intentions, hearing individuals’ ignorance has negative personal impacts on deaf individuals, stemming from their unawareness of the depth of the deaf experience. This frustration arises from ongoing consequences despite hearing people’s outsider status and lack of comprehension of their impact on shaping the deaf experience.

So what can we do?

As people with hearing loss, we know how important it is to communicate our needs to the hearing world. Now, we can also see ourselves as people with hearing, and understand how those needs (speaking louder, noise abatement, hearing aids) don’t mean much to our deaf (or deafer) friends. Katie recommends we stop thinking in terms of the “disability perspective”, which seems to judge people based on their level of hearing acuity.

In any case, Katie has recommended that future studies include hard-of-hearing participants. “It would be neat to see what results emerge if such a study were replicated with a hard-of-hearing focus group!” <>

Editor’s note:

"Do You Hear What I Hear?" is a Christmas song written in October 1962, as a plea for peace during the Cuban missile crisis. It became a hit when Bing Crosby recorded it a year later.

What WHO says

The World Health Organization has its own concept of deafness and hearing loss. From its website:

A person who is not able to hear as well as someone with normal hearing—hearing thresholds of 20 dB or better in both ears—is said to have hearing loss. Hearing loss may be mild, moderate, severe or profound. It can affect one ear or both ears and leads to difficulty in hearing conversational speech or loud sounds.

Hard of hearing refers to people with hearing loss ranging from mild to severe. People who are hard of hearing usually communicate through spoken language and can benefit from hearing aids, cochlear implants, and other assistive devices as well as captioning.

Deaf people mostly have profound hearing loss, which implies very little or no hearing. They often use sign language for communication.

Remembering Karen Keil

Though she was a member of the Boulder Chapter, Karen Keil often used to attend Denver Chapter meetings, and during the early 2000s she also served as HLAA’s Colorado state newsletter editor. It was a sad surprise to learn that Karen passed away at age 67 on May 9, 2024, from early-onset, fast-progressing dementia.

Karen Ann Keil was born March 19, 1957 in Spokane, Washington. She was born with profound hearing loss that wasn’t discovered until she was about three years old. That is when she received her first hearing aids along with speech therapy. In 1975, she was the only member of her graduating class at Thomas Jefferson High School in Denver with hearing loss.

In 1988 Karen graduated Metropolitan State University in Denver with a double major in computer information systems and art. Her first job was with the company that is now CenturyLink. 

After hearing aids were no longer effective, Karen received cochlear implants in 2000 and 2006.

According to a statement from her family, “The cochlear implants changed her life immensely. They gave her back what she had lost and more! She said it made life so much easier for her, her family, co-workers and friends. Karen also enjoyed sharing her cochlear experiences with those contemplating getting implants.”

On my recent adventure in health care

By Paula DeJohn

“I think you need to see an audiologist. You don’t seem to be hearing me very well.”

The speaker is a nurse in my newly occupied hospital room, where I am lying bleary-eyed and sporting a variety of tubes and patches and a big gauzy bandage.

Somehow a blaze of anger stirs itself up out of the mental haze that surrounds me, and I answer back: “As I’ve already told you, I have hearing loss. I’m wearing my hearing aids and they have new batteries, but in this environment, with background conversations and ventilation noise, I still cannot hear speech clearly. Sometimes I will have to ask you to repeat yourself, or speak a bit louder.  Even a great audiologist can’t fix that.”

That’s an approximation, as I wasn’t taking notes, but I trust the memory. I also know I’m not the first person to be frustrated with the experience of needing health care and not being able to understand important communications. In fact, the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) has published guidelines for patients and providers to improve communication, including a form called the Communication Access Plan, where you can list all the devices you need and bring it to caregivers.

Loving kindness wins

I didn’t do that. In fact, I didn’t even need to mention my hearing loss as people streamed in and out of the room, day and night, while I was barely awake. Shift changes brought new faces and news of my healing progress. The nurse I first spoke with turned out to be especially caring and friendly, and after that we understood each other well.

As I had explained, I can hear pretty well with hearing aids, and I wore them even when napping. More important, there was little reason to have conversations. A gentle touch let me know it was time to take those vital signs, or hang another intravenous fluid bag. Perhaps also important was the fact that quite a few of my caregivers were not native English speakers. They were not chatty—but they also were never impatient. They were generous with smiles and expert hands. “How are you? Turn this way. Have a good night.” That was all I needed to hear.

Am I the only one?

It would be nice to end here with a great review of my hospital experience, but it wasn’t quite over.

A couple of days later, I’m at home lazing in bed with tea and pain relievers when the phone rings. It is a woman who, after I repeat several times “I can’t hear you!” identifies herself as the hospital’s discharge manager, and wants to know how I’m doing. We communicate. At the end I ask her—somewhat irrately—couldn’t you make provisions for patients who cannot hear well on the phone? Could you text or email? Surely I’m not the first one you called with this difficulty.”

She answers vaguely and rapidly, and I hear that of course she has other patients who can’t hear.

“So what do you do?” I ask. After a long moment she says, “We write them a letter.”

Not only does the First Universalist Church have a hearing loop in its sanctuary, but it advertises the fact to all who enter through the front door.