Sometimes a hearing aid or an assistive listening device is not enough to make you hear clearly and you need extra coping strategies to help you to hear as clearly as possible.
It is possible to rearrange your home to make it more user-friendly for the deaf and the areas you need to address are light, noise and distance. None of these coping strategies are expensive most involve a little planning. With a little bit of care you can make your home very friendly to hard of hearing and deaf people.
Light
Almost all hard of hearing people rely to some extent on watching someone else’s lips when they speak irrespective of whether they can speech read or not. To use speech reading effectively you need the correct form of lighting and at the right angle; in certain circumstances light can throw a shadow on someone else’s face. You need to see the faces but the light should not be shining into their eyes this makes table lamps difficult because the light is at eye level. The best light for this purpose is ceiling lights however many people prefer ambient lighting rather than ceiling lamps. If you prefer ambient lighting use a tall halogen lamp or a tall lamp stand so the light is higher than eye level.
Although daylight can make lip-reading easier the light shining in someone’s eyes makes it harder. Ideally chairs should not be situated directly in front of a window because that throws shadow on the person’s face and this makes it difficult to lip read. It is necessary to have a sofa and chair in front of the window it is easier to lip read if the hard of hearing person sits in that seat. When there are two hard of hearing or deaf people and it is impossible to have a conversation in front of the window. Turn the chairs around so the light is coming in from the side and not shining directly on either face.
Noise
Open plan living can be disastrous for deaf people because noise travels from one area to another. It is easier to speak in a room with four walls behind a closed door, because the area is enclosed it acts as a barrier when it shuts out extraneous noise from the rest of the house. Turn off any distractions that will make it harder for you to hear such as the stereo, television or radio. Other distractions are dishwashing machines, microwaves and washing machines if you have hard of hearing guests don’t use these appliances until they have gone.
Distance
To hear effectively a deaf person has to be up close and personal! If someone is standing 3 feet away from you the decibel level you hear is too low to make out clearly what someone is saying. Listening to someone across a room is almost impossible, stand in front of the person you want to hear you. People with normal hearing can adjust to those distances for deaf people can’t, just moving the chairs closer together will make a big difference in the quality of their hearing abilities.
You should always be opposite a deaf person rather than adjacent to them so that the sound is directed to their ears. Also they will find it easier to monitor your lip movement and speech read when they are opposite you.
As these tips illustrate it is not at all difficult to improve the conditions in any home and make it more user friendly for the deaf and hard of hearing.