Mission:
To use my experience with hearing loss and deafness to help others who are, or know someone who is, experiencing hearing loss or deafness.
Forward:
My name is Ron Jaxon. I've experienced just about all there is to experience when it comes to hearing loss. My hearing loss was first discovered as a toddler when my parents realized I didn't always respond to sound and would pronounce some words incorrectly. At first this was diagnosed as fluid build up in the inner ears. So in the first grade when I had my tonsils removed they also performed a common procedure where they insert tubes in my ears to drain the fluid build up. This did restore my ability to hear. But a few years later it was discovered that even without the fluid build up in my ears I still had significant hearing loss. In the fourth grade I was given my first set of hearing aids. With the hearing aids my hearing was maintained at relatively “normal hearing” range. As I got older my hearing continued to decrease so I'd have to get a new and more powerful hearing aid every few years. By the time I was about 17 years old my hearing had decreased to the point where even with hearing aids I still had a hard time hearing many sounds. It became more and more difficult to really understand speech so I eventually stopped wearing my hearing aids all together. For even with them all I could really hear where loud low pitched sounds. The hearing aids basically became useless to me with in dealing with day to day sounds.
By the time I was about 20 years old my hearing had decreased to the point where I was classified as “Profoundly deaf”. This means I could hear sounds if they where very loud but I could no longer hear speech at all. By age 23 I was completely deaf. During this time I experience depression and self isolation as a result of the low self esteem as a result of the “Complete loss” of my hearing. IT took time and I eventually came to terms with my deafness and started to learn to deal with my situation. I learned ASL (American Sign Language). I never became fluent at ASL but I learned enough to get by with it. Lip reading was my primary means of communication though because I didn't have many people in my life that knew Sign Language (That's a common condition with people who are late deafened because they didn't grow up with it and aren't really prepared to live with deafness).
As I started to tackle the hurdles my deafness brought to my life. I learned many ways to deal with situations that where effected by my deafness. I seeked out technology and techniques to deal with situations. Just to share the kind of hurdles I worked to figure out. Things like, “How can I wake up on time when I can't hear the alarm clock? - How can I know if some is ringing my door bell? - How can I make it easier to order food at a restaurant?. These are just a few of the kinds of things that my deafness made challenging and I had a strong desire to work these issues out to make my life a little easier.
Well, on December 21, 2009 my experience with hearing loss took another turn when my Cochlear Implant was activated and I began to be able to hear again for the first time in almost 20 years. Today, I can talk on the phone, listen to music and most people I meet have no idea I was ever deaf.
This puts me in a unique position to use my experience to help others who are going through hearing loss or late onset deafness. And just importantly to help people who are close to people with hearing loss or deafness. When a person losses their hearing it not only effects the individual. It also effects the people that they speak to on a day to day basis such as friends, family and co-workers. So now that I have regained my ability to hear and speak more clearly, plus the fact that I'm an entertainer and use to being in front of groups of people, gives me an edge in helping others overcome the obstacles their hearing loss might present them.
I'd like to help as many people as I can in this area. Some of my ideas of venues to give seminars on these issues are just about anyplace a person might at some time find themselves in a situation where they might have to communicate with a person with hearing loss or deafness. Which if you think about it. With about 34,000,000 Americans living with hearing loss or deafness. It's a good chance that just about everyone will find themselves communicating with a person with hearing loss.
A few Venues I hope to give a lecture or Seminar:
School – It's likely that most schools will have a number of students with hearing loss or deafness. It would be beneficial to the students with hearing loss as well as the teachers and fellow students to understand what it's like to be deaf or have hearing loss. To ease communication as well as understanding. There are a lot of misconceptions about deafness and I aim to set some of those misconceptions straight. It would benefit a deaf or hard of hearing student both academically as well as socially if the people around them knew how to communicate with them and understood a little more about the conditions of deafness or hearing impairment.
Stores and Restaurants - It can be very challenging as a deaf person to get help in department stores and ordering food in a restaurant. If the employees are better informed on how to assist a deaf or hearing impaired customer. That customer will most likely return to the establishment. They'll also most likely share with others how good their experience was there. It's very common for deaf people to spread the word about “Deaf friendly” establishments.
Corporation - As I said above. Just about any venue in which people have to communicate with other people are likely to at some point have to communicate with people who have hearing loss. This includes business clients of any kind. “Deaf people can do anything anyone else can do, except hear” is a famous quote about deafness. This means that deaf people can be business people, doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, teachers, the list goes on and on. So, any business could benefit from knowing how to communicate with a hearing impaired or deaf person.
