I’m just back from the annual HLAA convention. This one was in Phoenix, where the average temperature at this time of year is 107 degrees. That’s average! I thought I’d skip this one, which was my 13th. Not only is Phoenix hot but it’s a long flight, 5 and a half hours nonstop from New … Continue reading Talking About Hearing Loss — in Phoenix
#HLAA.
Stigma: Why It’s So Hard to Talk About Hearing Loss
This week the World Health Organization asked me to speak at the launch of their global Report on Hearing. The audience, from all over the world via Zoom, were primarily hearing professionals and public health experts whose work is about hearing loss but who don’t have it themselves. I was asked to speak about my … Continue reading Stigma: Why It’s So Hard to Talk About Hearing Loss
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What the ADA Means to Me
30 years ago this week, George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, which had been passed by a bipartisan Congress. Change for people with visible disabilities came quickly. Curb cuts became the norm, and allowed people in wheelchairs to cross the street. Wheelchair ramps aided not just wheelchair users but people with … Continue reading What the ADA Means to Me
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Heroes with Hearing Loss
This Memorial Day, there will be very few parades to celebrate our veterans. But it's a good time to remind ourselves of the toll that war takes on hearing. When we think about the injuries our servicemen and -women endure, we focus on major life-changing injuries like Traumatic Brain Injury and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. We worry about suicide in veterans. … Continue reading Heroes with Hearing Loss
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Communicating in the Age of Covid: An Unexpected Benefit
There aren’t many bright spots when it comes to Covid 19. The death toll is enormous, the financial impact is potentially catastrophic, the fear of what lies ahead can be overwhelming. Still, for many with hearing loss, this period offers an insight into what it’s like to have equal access to spoken communication. Many of … Continue reading Communicating in the Age of Covid: An Unexpected Benefit
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Coronavirus Got You Stuck at Home? It’s a Good Time to Improve Your Hearing.
Social Isolation can get awfully boring. Many of us find ourselves with not much to do except anxiously watch TV. Here's a suggestion: make the most of house arrest by tackling one the online auditory rehabilitation programs. Working on hearing better during this period has an added benefit. Since you are probably isolated and not … Continue reading Coronavirus Got You Stuck at Home? It’s a Good Time to Improve Your Hearing.
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“Volume Control” Entertains, Educates and Will Probably Make You Mad at the Big Six
One of the great things about being a writer is that it lets you pursue your passions and still call it work. Like many people who encounter hearing loss when they don’t expect it, David Owen, author of more than a dozen books, wanted to know what had happened to his hearing and why. So … Continue reading “Volume Control” Entertains, Educates and Will Probably Make You Mad at the Big Six
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The Talkies
For the first time in as long as I can remember, I’ve actually seen – and heard – many of this year’s Oscar-nominated movies. Including the ones in English. What made this possible? The oft-deplored trend to streaming video. When the Oscar nominations came out earlier this week, the news media focused on the showdown … Continue reading The Talkies
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Moviegoer’s Lament
Last week, the Washington Post ran an article about a movement to make open-captioned movie screenings more widely available to the deaf and hard of hearing. Open captions in movies generally run across the bottom of the screen, the same as subtitles you see in a foreign movie. The Post's article, by Michael O'Sullivan, discussed a … Continue reading Moviegoer’s Lament
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Resilience
Whenever I am with a group of people with hearing loss, as I was last week at the annual convention of the Hearing Loss Association of America, I am impressed by the hurdles so many have overcome. Sudden or severe hearing loss is an ever-present challenge all on its own. So many at Convention, however, … Continue reading Resilience
Katherine Bouton: Smart Hearing 