Lipreading

There are so many ways to communicate with a deaf person in person. A person could learn how to sign which sounds easy, but it is not. You can trust me on that one. You have to use it or you will loose it.

Some deaf men and women have the ability to read lips. Lip reading is a good way to communicate with a deaf person; however, it is not the best way by any means. Lip reading is exhausting to a deaf person. It is a guessing game. They are doing their best to figure out what is being said. Some people think because a person has the ability to read lips that they should talk loud or try to enunciate the words to aid in communication. Let me tell you that it does not work. Speaking louder does not help because the person is deaf. They will not hear you all of a sudden. Enunciate the words or trying to speak slowly helps in distorting the word which adds to the communication issues in addition to making you look stupid. Always remember to speak in your normal voice when communicating with a lip reader. If the words you are trying to communicate are not coming across clearly then use other words that have the same meaning. It may be difficult for you to get your message across, but you are not doing half the work. It is even more challenging when the sole responsibility of translating, interrupting, and responding falls upon one person's shoulders. It is something to think about.

Daryl

Traveling

Traveling can be a nightmare at times. We all had horrible experiences traveling at one point or another. We have grown accustomed to the possible sights, smells, and sounds when traveling , but just imagine what that could be like if your world had no sound. It would make certain ways of traveling more challenging than others.

In airports, announcements are made constantly when a flight is arriving, boarding, departing, or disembarking. Those announcements have no use for someone that can not hear. Deaf individuals rely on the digital boards displaying updated flight information around the terminals or flashing signs stating current information like "now boarding" or "gate closed". Those additional things may not mean anything to a hearing person, but could make a world of difference to someone that does not hear. It make them not only comfortable and self sufficient. The Rochester International Airport is the first airport in the county to install keyboards for hearing-impaired individuals called Interpretype or ITY™.

Other modes of transportation are slow in making traveling easy and enjoyable for everyone. Smaller train stations have no way of letting deaf individuals know updated information. There is no digital boards stating that the train will be arriving on-time or late. They will get that information whenever the train shows up using their own visual acuity. Bus stations have some type of information board to display information; but just like the train once you are on board there is no way of getting any updated information about stops, layovers, or problems if they arise.

In short, I feel that traveling should be made as easy as it can be for everyone. We have the means to make it happen. Others countries provide travel information to texting devices and cellphones using Bluetooth technology. We have to be mindful that it is not just a hearing world that we live in. It is also a deaf world.

"E" for Effort

I have to admit that I am very bad about checking voice mail. In this day and age, I have become a true texter. If I miss a call I will text the person back to see what they wanted. It is a learned behavior and it saves me time. By texting, I can get a direct answer vs. a long drawn out story when I really don't have time to chat.

I finally checked voice mail today and heard a message from this past Sunday. It was from a friend of a friend and it turns out that the message was not even for me. The message was for my roommate. Why am I getting a message on my phone for my roommate? Well, my roommate is deaf, but I should not be getting messages for him when he has his own communication devices.

The message for my roommate was that his friend was not going to make the appointment she set up with him earlier in the week. Well instead of contacting him directly, she calls my phone and leaves a message for me to tell him that she can not make it. Once I heard the message which was Wednesday, I sent my roommate a message stating that she did call to say that she could not make it last Sunday.

After giving her voice mail message some thought, I became offended. She made the appointment and it was her sole responsibility to let him know that she was not going to make it. She passed her responsibilities onto me which was not fair. I had nothing to do with the appointment other than help him prepare for it the day before. I would not have minded if she made an effort to contact him herself while using me as a back up to ensure that he got the message, but she did not. She chose what was convenient for her at the time disregarding everyone else. He was actually doing her a favor, but ended up wasting his time by waiting on her to show up.

I know it would have taken just a little more effort to send him a text message, but it would have been the right thing to do in my opinion. If she did not have time to text or did not know how to text, there was other options. She could have sent an email to his Blackberry or Sidekick. She could had emailed him at home or sent him an offline message using AIM. She could have done a relay call using 711 which is a process that she is very familiar with from work.

In short, she disregarded her responsibilities to her own friend by opting for the easiest way to save herself some time. The effort that she made was less than adequate and if I was grading her on it, she would receive an "E".

The Basics

As we already know, communication is a part of every day life. Just imagine for a second that you were unable to communicate your thoughts and desires effectively. How would you face that challenge?

Everyone assumes "normal" communication is done by speaking and listening, but what if one or both of those methods were not available. How would we get our point across? How would we express our ideas? How could we do the things we classify as simple without sound?

My blog is not all about me, but the challenges I see, hear, and face every day trying to communicate to the people in my world whose world has no sound.

I am not an expert in this field. I am just blogging about my experiences and what I may hear ironicly.