Hard of hearing - daily/classroom difficulties

Sherlyn

Sherlyn

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Being hard of hearing since birth, I had many difficulties adjusting to studying in a hearing school

  • Losing focus after listening awhile
  • Getting headache after listening in class for hours (Especially wearing hearing aids the entire day)
  • Speech impairment
  • Hard to memorise what teachers taught just by listening
  • Friends thought I was just ''blur'' but in fact I could not understand them
  • Noisy backgrounds - Hard to filter voices + noises
  • Picking up phones - too much feedback noises and unclear voice from receiver

I wanted to know if anyone else had the same problems or it was just me? It could be any problems you face and I'd be happy to get some feedbacks. I also tend to get headache frequently and was wondering if it is because I try too hard to read in between the lines during socialising. How frequent should my headache be anyway?
 
I had a super hard time in mainstream hearing school. It wasn't until I graduated did I learn I could have been going to my local deaf school, but my parents really wanted me in a hearing school. Started school with mild hearing loss and apd (unknown at the time) and ended with severe hearing loss. I didn't get hearing aids until I was 18, so I really struggled. I did have some teachers that would work with me, with cc on videos, and more takers for me. But it was a lot of guessing.
 
DeafNerdMommy said:
I had a super hard time in mainstream hearing school. It wasn't until I graduated did I learn I could have been going to my local deaf school, but my parents really wanted me in a hearing school. Started school with mild hearing loss and apd (unknown at the time) and ended with severe hearing loss. I didn't get hearing aids until I was 18, so I really struggled. I did have some teachers that would work with me, with cc on videos, and more takers for me. But it was a lot of guessing.
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wow.. that must have been so tough.. when I run out of batteries in my hearing aids, I basically hear very minimal and by the end of the day, i'd have headaches. Did u have headaches?
 
Feel the headaches are from concentrating so hard...and lip-reading too...when my own hearing was 60/40 and unaided...I sat in front of the class to be able to "hear" better....Soon after, I became totally deaf and switched to a deaf school.
 
I don't recall if I ever had headaches or not.. tired yes. Grew up mainstreamed through high school. Parents said no when I wanted to go to MSSD lol (aunt lived nearby at the time). For me it was pretty much sit in front of the class (for vision and hearing reasons). I read... A LOT...I think that was one of the major things that gave me good grades. I recall failing my spelling tests in 5th or 6th grade because at the beginning of the week- and through the week I think we were given the words verbally. After that the teacher would write the words on the board Monday morning only...and I did better on the quizzes lol. Never had notetakers, closed captioning hadn't been widely used as it is now and no interpreters as I didn't know sign. Once in a while a teacher would give extra help especially if there was a film or audio recording.
 
While your headaches might be entirely due to the extreme, sustained concentration required by your level of deafness, there might also be some other cause.
Do headaches run in your family?
Are they sometimes migraines?

An extreme and unlikely example: a friend of mine had headaches all her life including before puberty, which is less common. Her mother also suffered bad headaches and migraines. Once she secured health insurance at a job she saw a doctor about it who ordered an MRI. It turned out she had an aneurism behind each eye! 2 different operations were required to fix it. First went fine, the second left a small bleed and she got a stroke, from which she mostly recovered.

This friend feels that even with the problems she is glad for having done it. She occasionally gets mild headaches now but that is all. Her problem was not he same as her mom's.

If you have not seen a good headache doctor about this, try to do so even. Secondly, do you know for sure you are not sensitive to air pollutants? If you also get headaches in Malls, be suspicious your headaches could be exaggerated by your school's ventilation system. Many systems are old and dirty.

Your problem may well be mostly the demands on your concentration but keep an open mind in case there is a secondary contributor to the problem. I bet you would be happy just to get fewer headaches.

For myself, yes, having to concentrate very hard for hours is extremely stressful and my head can start to feel tight within 30 minutes. If I am also hungry the ache will ramp up big time.

I hope you find some tools to make things easier.
 
Sherlyn said:
wow.. that must have been so tough.. when I run out of batteries in my hearing aids, I basically hear very minimal and by the end of the day, i'd have headaches. Did u have headaches?
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I didn't have headaches because I would give up. Of I couldn't hear, I couldn't hear. I didn't move seats or strain to read lips. I was mad at my parents for not getting me the help I needed. I did very poor in school, which is now hitting me in the butt noe that I am on college and have the help I need.
 
Tetracyclone said:
While your headaches might be entirely due to the extreme, sustained concentration required by your level of deafness, there might also be some other cause.
Do headaches run in your family?
Are they sometimes migraines?

An extreme and unlikely example: a friend of mine had headaches all her life including before puberty, which is less common. Her mother also suffered bad headaches and migraines. Once she secured health insurance at a job she saw a doctor about it who ordered an MRI. It turned out she had an aneurism behind each eye! 2 different operations were required to fix it. First went fine, the second left a small bleed and she got a stroke, from which she mostly recovered.

This friend feels that even with the problems she is glad for having done it. She occasionally gets mild headaches now but that is all. Her problem was not he same as her mom's.

If you have not seen a good headache doctor about this, try to do so even. Secondly, do you know for sure you are not sensitive to air pollutants? If you also get headaches in Malls, be suspicious your headaches could be exaggerated by your school's ventilation system. Many systems are old and dirty.

Your problem may well be mostly the demands on your concentration but keep an open mind in case there is a secondary contributor to the problem. I bet you would be happy just to get fewer headaches.

For myself, yes, having to concentrate very hard for hours is extremely stressful and my head can start to feel tight within 30 minutes. If I am also hungry the ache will ramp up big time.

I hope you find some tools to make things easier.
Click to expand...

Really late reply but i think the headaches are caused by a couple of factors. I have dust allergy so i get blocked nose in air conditioned room and runny nose so that might had made things worse. As well as the fact i sleep reallly really late due to college work.

DeafNerdMommy said:
I didn't have headaches because I would give up. Of I couldn't hear, I couldn't hear. I didn't move seats or strain to read lips. I was mad at my parents for not getting me the help I needed. I did very poor in school, which is now hitting me in the butt noe that I am on college and have the help I need.
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I understand that feeling. When I couldnt understand i would just give up. Im glad you got the help you need!
 
CART can give you headaches if you concentrate hard. And it can make you go to sleep.

I used to sleep a lot on the school bus, because my private school didn't provide terps. Thank goodness, I got good friends to help me out with notetaking.
 
Sherlyn said:
Being hard of hearing since birth, I had many difficulties adjusting to studying in a hearing school

  • Losing focus after listening awhile
  • Getting headache after listening in class for hours (Especially wearing hearing aids the entire day)
  • Speech impairment
  • Hard to memorise what teachers taught just by listening
  • Friends thought I was just ''blur'' but in fact I could not understand them
  • Noisy backgrounds - Hard to filter voices + noises
  • Picking up phones - too much feedback noises and unclear voice from receiver

I wanted to know if anyone else had the same problems or it was just me? It could be any problems you face and I'd be happy to get some feedbacks. I also tend to get headache frequently and was wondering if it is because I try too hard to read in between the lines during socialising. How frequent should my headache be anyway?
Click to expand...
Are you in college? If so, DEMAND an interpreter.
Demand one, I say.
 
Barbaro said:
CART can give you headaches if you concentrate hard. And it can make you go to sleep.

I used to sleep a lot on the school bus, because my private school didn't provide terps. Thank goodness, I got good friends to help me out with notetaking.
Click to expand...

I might sound noob, but what is CART and TERPS? Sorry for asking.. and in my case my friends were really supportive so I got a lot of help from them! I'm blessed to have really understanding friends.

Teacherofthedeaf said:
Do you use an FM system? Do you get teacher of the deaf services, notetakers, captions on videos?
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I have never used an FM system but I recently managed to secure 1 after graduating from high school for free under the government scheme. Haven't gotten a chance to really use it since I'm out of college for now. Never had an interpreter or note-takers because I would have felt really uncomfortable especially since i had lessons in small classroom setting. I didn't want the attention. I rely on myself and my friends for the most part.
 
You should see if you need to wear eyeglasses you can get headaches from this too. Have you had your eyes checked recently ? Reading lips can also made you very tried and that will give you headaches too. Do you use a note taker for your classes ?
 
Barbaro said:
CART can give you headaches if you concentrate hard. And it can make you go to sleep.

I used to sleep a lot on the school bus, because my private school didn't provide terps. Thank goodness, I got good friends to help me out with notetaking.
Click to expand...

Oh the memories. I went to private school in my later years and the bus rides were 1.5 hours long at least. So between the long ride and in the afternoon being tired from concentrating so much.. I slept/dozed a LOT.

Sherlyn said:
I might sound noob, but what is CART and TERPS? Sorry for asking.. and in my case my friends were really supportive so I got a lot of help from them! I'm blessed to have really understanding friends.
Click to expand...

CART= Communication Access Realtime Translation. More or less a real time captioning. Here is a link to explain more about that- http://ccacaptioning.org/faqs-cart/

"TERP"= shorthand for interpreter. ASL interpreters mostly but there are oral interpreters who do 'mouth' what the speaker is saying so the oral deaf lipreads.

FM systems you know of- they're good for smaller classroom sizes if your hearing is at a level where you can understand most of what's being said. I used my old FM system when I went to "business school" to learn COBOL. I'm not sure I could now LOL.

It's tough.. but between feeling uncomfortable and feeling super wiped out I'd go with not wanting to fee so wiped out on a daily basis and get an interpreter or CART. I've relied on friends sometimes but I can't always count on that to be able to get the correct info as no two notes or interpretation of the lecture will be the same.

whatdidyousay! said:
You should see if you need to wear eyeglasses you can get headaches from this too. Have you had your eyes checked recently ? Reading lips can also made you very tried and that will give you headaches too. Do you use a note taker for your classes ?
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Good point with glasses but even WITH glasses I get headaches on a semi regular basis if I spend half the day dealing with and concentrating in an environment where there is a LOT of hearing conversation going on. Yes lipreading is tiring... and trying for that matter...:P but with that you only get maybe 30% back.

WDYS- she already mentioned that she does not use nor has used a formal notetaker, she relies on her friends for shared notes.

Sherlyn - Hope you are able to find something that works for you. I wouldn't worry too much about what others think. Chances are most won't really notice or care :). Best of luck for the coming year in college! :) :)
 
whatdidyousay! said:
You should see if you need to wear eyeglasses you can get headaches from this too. Have you had your eyes checked recently ? Reading lips can also made you very tried and that will give you headaches too. Do you use a note taker for your classes ?
Click to expand...

Yes it could be the eyeglassses as well... I had to use the laptop everyday and was straining my eyes to the point of no return. I do lip read because it helps to be more accurate in understanding. No i do not use notetakers.


DeafDucky said:
Sherlyn - Hope you are able to find something that works for you. I wouldn't worry too much about what others think. Chances are most won't really notice or care :). Best of luck for the coming year in college! :) :)
Click to expand...

Thank you for the knowledge and luck! I hope college will be easier to cope with!!
 
Sherlyn said:
Yes it could be the eyeglassses as well... I had to use the laptop everyday and was straining my eyes to the point of no return. I do lip read because it helps to be more accurate in understanding. No i do not use notetakers.




Thank you for the knowledge and luck! I hope college will be easier to cope with!!
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Reading lips for a long time can be hard on you too , hearing people have no idea this is work too and it not easy to read everyone lips. How much longer do you have to
go college ?
 
whatdidyousay! said:
Reading lips for a long time can be hard on you too , hearing people have no idea this is work too and it not easy to read everyone lips. How much longer do you have to
go college ?
Click to expand...

My lipreading is not very good but i guess it does take a strain... because i dont understand clearly if i dont read people's lip. I'll apply for college next year and it will take 4 years to complete bachelors. :)
 
Sherlyn said:
My lipreading is not very good but i guess it does take a strain... because i dont understand clearly if i dont read people's lip. I'll apply for college next year and it will take 4 years to complete bachelors. :)
Click to expand...
I had a speech therapist and she told me that she was teaching a woman who just lost her hearing how to read lips . The woman said she was getting tried and a headache from
trying to read lips . There are some people that are really too hard to read their lips no matter how good you're at it so don't give up on it .
 
Sherlyn said:
My lipreading is not very good but i guess it does take a strain... because i dont understand clearly if i dont read people's lip. I'll apply for college next year and it will take 4 years to complete bachelors. :)
Click to expand...
I was the sole deaf student in high school, and I was placed in front of the classroom "to lipread better."
I had nightmares till my mid-thirties.
 
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