Deaf awareness week
Apparently 4-10 May is Deaf Awareness Week. While my work will be slightly distracted with an election, they've expressed willingness to do more diversity awareness via the main website, which everyone will be looking at this week.
So it would be nice to mention DAW and some helpful bullet points, cos no-one else is going to write it.
My starter for 10:
1. 1 in 10 people of working age has a hearing loss that affects them, though many don't know it.
2. People with hearing loss may manage well in quiet places, but struggle where there is background noise. This is because a small hearing loss causes a much greater loss of the "cocktail party effect" - your ability to pick out one voice among others in the background. Hearing people can do this even when competing noises are 15dB louder than the voice they are listening to. People with reduced hearing need the sounds they are listening to to be at least 8 dB louder than background noise.
3. Hearing aids make things louder and try to pick out sounds from one direction, but can't replicate ears for coping in background noise.
4. Working to decode voices via residual hearing and/or lipreading is very tiring. People may need a break after a meeting.
5. Videos without subtitles or captions may be useless to a substantial portion of your audience.
6. British Sign Language is used by around 50,000 people in the UK. So it won't help the vast majority of people with hearing loss - many may know a little but not enough to be useful in a work situation. Some may use Sign Supported English which is BSL signs with more English-like grammar, or make use of Remote Captioning or in-person Speech to Text Relay operators, also known as palantypists, who type verbatim. Note-takers may also be useful. Note that services which rely on re-speaking and software to produce text are unlikely to be adequate to support someone at work - look at the live subtitles on the BBC News.
7. Try to get someone's attention before talking to them, and start by stating the topic of the conversation. Don't cover your mouth. One tactic is to say "could you read the email I've just sent you, then come over and chat about it?"
8. How good someone's speech is has no correlation with their level of hearing. If someone says they can't hear you, believe them! Equally, not being able to hear or speak doesn't mean someone isn't perfectly intelligent.
9. While many deaf people can manage the phone with heatingn aids, an amplified phone, or TextRelay, they may choose not to use one especially for incoming calls. So when designing forms and processes, provide an opt-out - don't make a phone number compulsory, make sureyou can record a Text Relay prefix or request to be tested only, and ensure that requests by email or other means are read and treated with the same urgency as phone requests. This also helps people who find it hard to process or remember audio information, such as many elderly people or people with autism.
10. Some companies selling hearing aids try to imply that NHS aids are inferior and you can't choose colours etc. This generally isn't true - if you are concerned about your or a family member's hearing, see the GP and ask for referral to audiology. Many people wait 10+ years before taking action, by which time the brain can lose ability to decode sounds even if hearing aids can restore sound levels.
Posted via m.livejournal.com.
So it would be nice to mention DAW and some helpful bullet points, cos no-one else is going to write it.
My starter for 10:
1. 1 in 10 people of working age has a hearing loss that affects them, though many don't know it.
2. People with hearing loss may manage well in quiet places, but struggle where there is background noise. This is because a small hearing loss causes a much greater loss of the "cocktail party effect" - your ability to pick out one voice among others in the background. Hearing people can do this even when competing noises are 15dB louder than the voice they are listening to. People with reduced hearing need the sounds they are listening to to be at least 8 dB louder than background noise.
3. Hearing aids make things louder and try to pick out sounds from one direction, but can't replicate ears for coping in background noise.
4. Working to decode voices via residual hearing and/or lipreading is very tiring. People may need a break after a meeting.
5. Videos without subtitles or captions may be useless to a substantial portion of your audience.
6. British Sign Language is used by around 50,000 people in the UK. So it won't help the vast majority of people with hearing loss - many may know a little but not enough to be useful in a work situation. Some may use Sign Supported English which is BSL signs with more English-like grammar, or make use of Remote Captioning or in-person Speech to Text Relay operators, also known as palantypists, who type verbatim. Note-takers may also be useful. Note that services which rely on re-speaking and software to produce text are unlikely to be adequate to support someone at work - look at the live subtitles on the BBC News.
7. Try to get someone's attention before talking to them, and start by stating the topic of the conversation. Don't cover your mouth. One tactic is to say "could you read the email I've just sent you, then come over and chat about it?"
8. How good someone's speech is has no correlation with their level of hearing. If someone says they can't hear you, believe them! Equally, not being able to hear or speak doesn't mean someone isn't perfectly intelligent.
9. While many deaf people can manage the phone with heatingn aids, an amplified phone, or TextRelay, they may choose not to use one especially for incoming calls. So when designing forms and processes, provide an opt-out - don't make a phone number compulsory, make sureyou can record a Text Relay prefix or request to be tested only, and ensure that requests by email or other means are read and treated with the same urgency as phone requests. This also helps people who find it hard to process or remember audio information, such as many elderly people or people with autism.
10. Some companies selling hearing aids try to imply that NHS aids are inferior and you can't choose colours etc. This generally isn't true - if you are concerned about your or a family member's hearing, see the GP and ask for referral to audiology. Many people wait 10+ years before taking action, by which time the brain can lose ability to decode sounds even if hearing aids can restore sound levels.
Posted via m.livejournal.com.