Hearing impairment is quite a common phenomenon. Some people may have a problem with hearing loss or impairment from their childhood, while some might have lost their ability to attend due to some unprecedented accident in their life. If you are partially or entirely hearing impaired, you know the troubles of communicating with others. But this is not impossible; there are several key ways to overcome this communication gap. Here are some tips that would surely aid anyone with a hearing impairment overcome this communication barrier!
Tips For Overcoming Communication Barrier
There are several ways a person with a hearing impairment can overcome the communication barrier with other people. Let’s have a look, shall we! The following tips will act as your aid when you approach another person.
- Lip reading: Grow your skill
Lip reading is one of the most valuable and convenient ways for a person with a hearing impairment to overcome the communication barrier. This will help you interact with other people quickly and understand what other people are saying. Often, we forget that there are people who do not know sign language, and hence we fall into awkward situations wherein we are unable to interact.
This is a method where one interprets what other people are saying by observing the movements of lips and tongue and by following the other person’s facial expression and body language. Lip readers generally use the information they get from the context of the conversation, the unique lip gestures and patterns assigned to them. Government facilities teach you such skills; a noteworthy mention is the Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre.
- Sign Language: Essential life skill
Another method to overcome the communication barrier is sign language usage, and it is widely used throughout the whole world. Sign Language is unique and utterly different from the everyday communicative English language. It has some distinctive signs and keywords specially made for people with hearing impairment to communicate with others and understand what they say. BSL has its grammatical structure, and there are different sign languages in various areas like other colloquial dialects.
- More on BSL: Long-term help
BSL involves the usage of the visual representation of alphabets with fingers; in this case, the talkers use their two hands and some gestures of fingers to indicate an alphabet. Some different specific hand gestures are there to represent each alphabet. This is very helpful for the lip readers. Thus it helps them overcome the communication barrier. They use it while communicating with others, and sign language is more or less known to all people with hearing impairment.
- Makaton: Do you know about this?
There is another method called Makaton, in which some simple body language and pictures are used simultaneously with the conversing sentence. This method is beneficial for those who have less developed language skills. The pictorial representation of things with so much simplicity helps them understand every word while efficiently communicating. So, if you are presenting something in front of a crowd or are learning the basics of communication as a hearing-impaired person, starting here can be a significant baby step for you.
- Cued speech method: You may know about this already, but brush up your skills on this
This is another very frequently used visual communication technique for people with hearing impairment. It is generally used to differentiate the words that may look and sound similar, such as mad and mat, break and brake, etc. In this method, different hand gestures and cues are used with different associated lip patterns simultaneously.
- Technological advancement: High techie-techie
Besides all these methods, there are several technologies available to assist you in understanding what others say and thus help you appropriately interact and communicate with others. Several hearing aids and devices are available in the market. The technology is booming exponentially, with the cost of these hearing aid devices being reduced over time.
It is unfortunate that we still have most people who cannot understand or interact through sign language. This is an issue of paramount importance to address these problems the people with hearing impairment face while communicating with others. Otherwise, they won’t be able to understand what others say correctly and can’t even express their thoughts with clarity. When technology wasn’t as advanced as it is now, it was extremely difficult for people with hearing impairment to communicate with others. But with tech advancements and more people inclined towards learning sign language, we have come far as a society, and we hope to take this forward to a greater extent in future.
Resources:
To learn primary sign languages:
To Learn British Sign Language:
For Developing General Communication Skills:
Government Institution To Provide Lip Reading And Sign Language Courses:
Videos To Learn Lip Reading and Sign Languages:
