Miss-Delectable
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Deaf for a Day: Challenge reveals difficulties faced by the hearing impaired
Standing in the doorway of the burning house, I dive into charades as soon as I spot the firefighter. Frantically I mime baby, one, small child, one, dog, one, then point upstairs .... so far so good. But how do I tell him my mother-in-law is in the basement with her three cats?
As I struggle with how to communicate “mother-in-law” and the firefighter shoots guesses at me (another child? an adult? your husband?) I suddenly realize it doesn’t matter how she’s related to me, they just need to know there’s another person in the basement. I point downstairs and the fire crew moves in, fanning out through the house to rescue my family.
It’s not my house and there’s no fire. Nor is it my real family, but imaginary relatives assigned to me when I signed up to be Deaf for a Day.
The Canadian Hearing Society invited representatives from the Ottawa Hospital, the Ottawa Police Service, the United Way, the Ottawa Fire Services and the Ottawa Citizen to spend a morning learning what it’s like to be deaf. Fitted with special earplugs and headsets to block out sound, we were sent with a Hearing Society buddy to complete a challenge, whether buying a car, giving evidence at an accident scene, booking rooms at a hotel or, in my case, giving crucial information at a house fire.
I jumped at the invitation for two reasons. One of my close relatives is increasingly hard of hearing, and I wanted to know what it’s like for him. Far more selfishly, I fear this is my fate in the not-too-distant future, as I already have marginal hearing loss in one ear. What will it be like to lose even more?
I discovered the answer soon after audiologist Shelly Simmerson filled my ear canals with a special sponge, followed by some bright green Otoform, a mouldable putty used to make hearing devices, and then popped bright yellow headphones on my ears. The sounds around me — the lively chatter of other participants, the rustle of clothing, the hum of the ventilation system — just disappeared, replaced with ominous white noise. If I strained I could hear voices as a low mumble, but that was about it.
It was momentarily terrifying, shockingly isolating and then just plain depressing. But I didn’t have time to mourn — Canadian Hearing Society president and CEO Chris Keponic was ready to lead me on my challenge, and outlined the scenario: I was sitting at home when I smelled smoke. My neighbour had already called 911, and I had to tell firefighters that I had two children, a mother-in-law, three cats (including two tabbies) and a dog, and where they were in the house. I was not to speak, nor write notes. That left charades.
We drove to the home of a Hearing Society staff member, and began the exercise with a crew of real firefighters complete with truck and gear. I was able to communicate the basics, but beyond that, forget it. The names of the children, the exact room in the basement where my mother-in-law was sleeping and the fact that she wouldn’t leave without her three cats all fell by the wayside as I focused on getting the essentials across.
I could still hear some voices, so I (silently) vowed not to listen, to make the exercise more authentic. But just role-playing a house fire wiped out that pledge, and in the imagined stress I was soon straining for every little sound. The firefighter, Capt. Trevor Woodside from Station 33, was a good sport who spoke clearly and loudly during the crisis (and is clearly a whiz at charades). But later — once everyone was out of the house, even the imaginary pets — his voice dropped to a normal tone and it became much harder to hear him.
Earplugs out, we guinea pigs debriefed back at the hearing society’s Riverside Dr. office. Some spoke of noticing the growing impatience of the hearing person they were trying to communicate with, while others found themselves suspecting they were being taken advantage of, and still others doubted their message was heard accurately at all. The challenges had hit their mark — all of these things are regularly experienced by the deaf and hard of hearing.
No wonder, then, that the rate of unemployment or underemployment of deaf people in Ontario is about 80 per cent, according to Keponic. The Hearing Society president said the general attitude in the workplace is “Sure you have the skills, but how can you work here if you can’t hear?”
Keponic’s own story is instructive. Having overcome misdiagnosis as “mentally retarded” while growing up on a farm in the Ottawa Valley, and bullying at the hearing he school he attended, Keponic later faced bias when applying for jobs after university. Somehow he not only built a successful career, he also maintained a sunny manner that puts hearing people at ease while not letting up on his message: put yourself in our shoes, and start to think about what you can do to make things better.
“Every morning when I wake up I still have to consider what barriers I am going to face on any given day,” from the confusion of a cash rebate when buying his latest sailboat, to being skipped over in line at Tim Hortons, says Keponic. “Our role should be one of looking at each other as equals, and saying ‘Whatever accommodation needs to done should just be done’.”
That left me wondering if my relative has visual fire alarms at home, and planning to have one on hand for family visits.
For more information, visit Home - The Canadian Hearing Society
Standing in the doorway of the burning house, I dive into charades as soon as I spot the firefighter. Frantically I mime baby, one, small child, one, dog, one, then point upstairs .... so far so good. But how do I tell him my mother-in-law is in the basement with her three cats?
As I struggle with how to communicate “mother-in-law” and the firefighter shoots guesses at me (another child? an adult? your husband?) I suddenly realize it doesn’t matter how she’s related to me, they just need to know there’s another person in the basement. I point downstairs and the fire crew moves in, fanning out through the house to rescue my family.
It’s not my house and there’s no fire. Nor is it my real family, but imaginary relatives assigned to me when I signed up to be Deaf for a Day.
The Canadian Hearing Society invited representatives from the Ottawa Hospital, the Ottawa Police Service, the United Way, the Ottawa Fire Services and the Ottawa Citizen to spend a morning learning what it’s like to be deaf. Fitted with special earplugs and headsets to block out sound, we were sent with a Hearing Society buddy to complete a challenge, whether buying a car, giving evidence at an accident scene, booking rooms at a hotel or, in my case, giving crucial information at a house fire.
I jumped at the invitation for two reasons. One of my close relatives is increasingly hard of hearing, and I wanted to know what it’s like for him. Far more selfishly, I fear this is my fate in the not-too-distant future, as I already have marginal hearing loss in one ear. What will it be like to lose even more?
I discovered the answer soon after audiologist Shelly Simmerson filled my ear canals with a special sponge, followed by some bright green Otoform, a mouldable putty used to make hearing devices, and then popped bright yellow headphones on my ears. The sounds around me — the lively chatter of other participants, the rustle of clothing, the hum of the ventilation system — just disappeared, replaced with ominous white noise. If I strained I could hear voices as a low mumble, but that was about it.
It was momentarily terrifying, shockingly isolating and then just plain depressing. But I didn’t have time to mourn — Canadian Hearing Society president and CEO Chris Keponic was ready to lead me on my challenge, and outlined the scenario: I was sitting at home when I smelled smoke. My neighbour had already called 911, and I had to tell firefighters that I had two children, a mother-in-law, three cats (including two tabbies) and a dog, and where they were in the house. I was not to speak, nor write notes. That left charades.
We drove to the home of a Hearing Society staff member, and began the exercise with a crew of real firefighters complete with truck and gear. I was able to communicate the basics, but beyond that, forget it. The names of the children, the exact room in the basement where my mother-in-law was sleeping and the fact that she wouldn’t leave without her three cats all fell by the wayside as I focused on getting the essentials across.
I could still hear some voices, so I (silently) vowed not to listen, to make the exercise more authentic. But just role-playing a house fire wiped out that pledge, and in the imagined stress I was soon straining for every little sound. The firefighter, Capt. Trevor Woodside from Station 33, was a good sport who spoke clearly and loudly during the crisis (and is clearly a whiz at charades). But later — once everyone was out of the house, even the imaginary pets — his voice dropped to a normal tone and it became much harder to hear him.
Earplugs out, we guinea pigs debriefed back at the hearing society’s Riverside Dr. office. Some spoke of noticing the growing impatience of the hearing person they were trying to communicate with, while others found themselves suspecting they were being taken advantage of, and still others doubted their message was heard accurately at all. The challenges had hit their mark — all of these things are regularly experienced by the deaf and hard of hearing.
No wonder, then, that the rate of unemployment or underemployment of deaf people in Ontario is about 80 per cent, according to Keponic. The Hearing Society president said the general attitude in the workplace is “Sure you have the skills, but how can you work here if you can’t hear?”
Keponic’s own story is instructive. Having overcome misdiagnosis as “mentally retarded” while growing up on a farm in the Ottawa Valley, and bullying at the hearing he school he attended, Keponic later faced bias when applying for jobs after university. Somehow he not only built a successful career, he also maintained a sunny manner that puts hearing people at ease while not letting up on his message: put yourself in our shoes, and start to think about what you can do to make things better.
“Every morning when I wake up I still have to consider what barriers I am going to face on any given day,” from the confusion of a cash rebate when buying his latest sailboat, to being skipped over in line at Tim Hortons, says Keponic. “Our role should be one of looking at each other as equals, and saying ‘Whatever accommodation needs to done should just be done’.”
That left me wondering if my relative has visual fire alarms at home, and planning to have one on hand for family visits.
For more information, visit Home - The Canadian Hearing Society