Is speaking and listening hard work for hearing people?

I think that it is harder for deaf people than for late deafened people. The bad thing about losing hearing after having it is emotionally adjusting to the loss. Suddenly, the hearing that was taken for granted is gone. When that happens, a lot of people fall into denial then depression. It's emotional work because the loss must be grieved. People who are resilient and flexible adjust better then those people who are withdrawn and rigid. The real loss is not "fitting" into the hearing world anymore.

I read here that many prelingual deaf people have grief over childhood isolation, especially when their families don't use ASL. The issue is not "fitting" into the hearing world here, too, but it's more challenging dealing with it as a child than as an adult.
 
Thanks :)

Since we grow up learning to analyze the sounds around us, our brains adapt to learning how to filter out background sounds like birds chirping, the ticking clock on the wall, the dripping faucet, footsteps, etc. Sometimes we don't hear everything. The process our brains go through to filter out and modulate sound is automatic, like breathing. We don't hear every single thing. There are a few times I was punished for not hearing things, but humans are not like guard dogs.
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That reminds me sense of smell. If I smell something basically everyday, I don't smell it anymore. as complex perfume is (that is, they add all these ingredients) I can smell the different scent of perfume and if someone walk pass me with my favorite perfume, I can smell it, and my brain just know which perfume it is.
 
I think she have a deaf mom... I don't punish my kids for not being my ears, although I do think if something is important, he should tell me.

But then again, parents do punish if the kids ignore them.

in the old days, they punish deaf for using Sign Languages. My great grandfather would harshly punish my grandmother (hearing) for signing with her deaf sister. He wanted my grandma's deaf sister to use spoken language at home (she went to a deaf residential school so whenever she was at home, she could not sign, only speak).
 
There is a difference between hearing and ignoring. My hearing teen sometimes doesn't hear me. Even teen brains are still developing. I make sure that he responds to what I say and understands what I need him to do before I discipline him. I don't discipline him for not hearing things even if he is just inattentive. Gosh, some parents are heavy handed! Not every lapse is an affront to parental authority.
 
Hearing for me is exactly as effortless as seeing. The only difference is I can't close my ears to avoid hearing something I don't want to hear!

In a noisy environment, when many sounds are competing for my attention, I may have to move in close and even watch the person's lips as they speak. I've heard that hearing people often use context cues and lip-reading to some extent to assist in interpreting what they hear, just as Deaf people do.

Yet I have no problem hearing what a person is saying to me if the TV is loud or music is playing. (I don't normally play them that loud, anyway.)

When in the car listening to public radio, my husband often insists on talking to me while I am trying to listen to the news. That can be a challenge, but it has taught me to actually listen to both at the same time. I don't think I could handle a third competing source though.

Hope this helps.
 
Lighthouse77 said:
I was wondering if I was just complaining too much about being overwhelm all the time even with my hearing aids/CI. I was sitting there wondering, maybe hearing people have do work just as hard as deaf people (with hearing aids, don't know about CI for others, but for me, it is still work) and that I should just suck it up. I was wondering if I'm just being silly because I never been hearing therefore I don't know what it is like.
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Deaf people definitely work harder than hearing people. HAs and CIs allow people to hear, but the sound is not the same as for hearing people, especially with CIs. The people who make CIs are constantly trying to improve the quality to improve the sound modulation and make sounds more "natural".

For hearing people our brains automatically filter out background noise from the sounds we need to hear. For people with HAs and CIs all the sound comes at once. The modern CIs modulate the sound and filter the noises, but it's still not the same as for "normal" hearing. There's also the issue of how the CIs handle different frequencies and how they handle distance. That's why deaf have to learn to pick out the relevant noises from all the sounds that constantly come. It is very, very different.

You aren't being silly.
Lighthouse77 said:
I think she have a deaf mom... I don't punish my kids for not being my ears, although I do think if something is important, he should tell me.

But then again, parents do punish if the kids ignore them.

in the old days, they punish deaf for using Sign Languages. My great grandfather would harshly punish my grandmother (hearing) for signing with her deaf sister. He wanted my grandma's deaf sister to use spoken language at home (she went to a deaf residential school so whenever she was at home, she could not sign, only speak).
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Yes. I grew up in a Deaf family. I was the only hearing person, so things were reverse for me :) ASL was our primary language, English was secondary for me. Long time ago there was a burglar who broke into our house and stole some things while we were all asleep. My mom found out when we woke up. My mom thought I should've heard the burglar. She got angry and I got punished.

I love my mom though. She was a young single Black Deaf woman raising three kids in Arizona. I believe she did the best she could, though I wish she had more support back then.
 
That's sad. I think your mom may been scared for you if something happened to you. I know I would... but that's why I have a dog. My son is highly allergic to dogs, so I do my best to keep dog hair out... and bath him weekly.
 
Lighthouse77 said:
That's sad. I think your mom may been scared for you if something happened to you. I know I would... but that's why I have a dog. My son is highly allergic to dogs, so I do my best to keep dog hair out... and bath him weekly.
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In this case she really was angry that I didn't wake up when the burglar came in. I think at the time she was just really frustrated. We were very poor.

I have a friend who has a dog and a cat, and she's allergic to both :lol: The dog takes a shower at least once every 1-3 days. He loves showers. The cat has a bath every 3-4 months. I try to bathe my cat 4+ times per year too.
 
:hug: at tujae. sorry about back way you had, but I see that you do understand in some way about your mom. I admit that back way in our old time was hard than now. Glad that all of you are alright.
 
My mom is a lot different now. She is doing her best to make up for all the things she has done. I don't hold the past against her.

I'll be going to visit her soon :) I want to help her on her English homework (she's taking college classes). Her professor is trying to use phonics to improve her English skills (even though she politely explained that she is profoundly Deaf). I want to see if I can apply an approach that makes more sense so that she can pass the course and move on.
 
That's great :) I hope you will be able to help her.

me, my English college class just let me breeze through it, knowing that English is my weakest subject.
 
Hearing is exhausting, at night when I take out my H.a. to go to bed, I sigh with relief, and since getting my new digital, often have a slight headache or ear ache at the end of the day. I get overstimulated fairly easy, am glad I work out of my home and am alone and quiet most of the day time hours while my kid is at school.

I used to have a speech impediment, and still get told I sound like I have a english accent sometimes, I speak too loudly much of the time (or so I am told). But talking is easy, except some words that I have only read and never heard properly I still mispronouce, my b/f is always gently correcting me.

Group situations, hearing is way impossible, I do best 1X1 with no background noises. I think I am pretty good at reading lips until the conversation veers off context and I lose it!

I love the silence when I turn my H.A. off or take it out.
 
hearing is easier or harder for some hearing people than others some of my friends have a harder times than me. One of my friends had many ear infections when younger and has a harder time hearing. Also one of my other friends has started to lose her hearing from work thats noisy(neither of them have hearing aids). So hearing isn't a 100% or 0%, but even aside from that the older you get it seems the harder it is to really focus(on peoples conversations). Maybe when you get older you kind of go auto pilot at work and such. Speaking not really unless you are bilingual or learning English.
 
i hear, and for me, its not to hard to pick up words, cause many years of listening to things and learning different ways words ar said and pronounciated, it seems to be pretty automatic that as long as all my attention isnt all put in one thing. But wen it gets loud its hard to recognize words with other things, and if ur actively trying to listen to something else than its almost as tho the other thing was never said, it just doesnt register in ur mind.
 
This is a really interesting question!

I would say, flat out, no, it is not difficult to hear and understand and speak. I would compare it to the effort of walking. It is perfectly easy, I often do it without thinking about it, and I have been doing it, continually, since learning as a baby!

I hope that comparison helps!
 
Moon-child said:
Hearing is exhausting, at night when I take out my H.a. to go to bed, I sigh with relief, and since getting my new digital, often have a slight headache or ear ache at the end of the day. I get overstimulated fairly easy, am glad I work out of my home and am alone and quiet most of the day time hours while my kid is at school.

I used to have a speech impediment, and still get told I sound like I have a english accent sometimes, I speak too loudly much of the time (or so I am told). But talking is easy, except some words that I have only read and never heard properly I still mispronouce, my b/f is always gently correcting me.

Group situations, hearing is way impossible, I do best 1X1 with no background noises. I think I am pretty good at reading lips until the conversation veers off context and I lose it!

I love the silence when I turn my H.A. off or take it out.
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I feel overstimulated with my HA's too. I take them out when I walk into my house most of the time. My brain needs the quiet. :)
 
i think speaking and *true* listening is hard for hearing people. They can *hear* what the person is saying fine, but to *listen* is hard. I believe it would be the same phenomenon in manual languages too, its easy to *watch* what the person is saying, but hard to truly *listen* (don't know of another word to use) while signing back.
*EQL*
 
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