It’s one thing to think about communicating with your friends and family in a regular, everyday lifestyle; you probably pick up the telephone, text, meet up and talk face-to-face. I believe that we have learned to take communicating for granted and with how much ease we can do it.
What about those who cannot hear? Sign language is a popular form of communicating with those who are deaf. In fact, communicating takes on a much more face-to-face roll with a deaf person. The majority of times when we communicate with people who can hear, the luxury of being able to hear means that we can talk over the phone, during face-to-face conversations we don’t have to maintain eye-contact with one another. We have the luxury of expecting that our words and tone of voice will help our recipient to understand our feelings and meaning. Maybe you’ve never had a conversation with a deaf person before, and may not have the correct communication skills to successfully have one if you needed to.
This video points out a few of the main things to be conscious of when communicating with a deaf person. Things which are courteous and important to remember.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7ZkAGQ23HM
Eye-contact is one of the most important and courteous things to remember because to a deaf person, a break in eye-contact says to them “what I am doing right now is more important than you.” It is important to avoid this break in eye-contact as much as it to learn the respectful ways of getting a deaf person’s attention. Communication between hearing people is a whole different ball-game than for deaf people.
Hearing people have developed many ways of communicating, those who are deaf communicate in ways which are slightly altered to fit their needs and the same goes for those who are blind. Communication will always be evolving and won’t ever stop over time. The deaf society may not be considered culture in the same way that media, religion and sports are, but I believe that the different ways in which we communicate with one another play a huge role in culture and there is more than one way of communicating.
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I definitely agree that we take our use of the sense of hearing for granted. I've heard on numerous occasions that once one sense is lost, the others work harder to compensate for the loss. Those who are dependent on sign language must attempt to find understanding in any interaction with another by reading their body language. Therefore as you mentioned, a little action like breaking eye contact to glance at a text message while conversing with such an individual further complicates the process.
ReplyDeleteWow, I wish I had read this post before going to work yesterday. I had the very different experience of trying to communicate with a hearing impaired woman yesterday. Having not realized at first that she was hearing impaired, I regret to say that I broke eye contact, tried talking louder, and tried prompting her to talk back to me. Communicating in this situation was very difficult and I was at a loss for how to proceed. Luckily, she must encounter this situation frequently and was able to bring out a cell phone to help us communicate. She typed in a messaged and then handed the cell phone to me to respond. Texting in this case was of great use. Face-to-face conversations must be difficult to have for a hearing impaired person without the use of sign language. A major advance in communicating for them is via text messaging, email, and instant messaging. Great post, thanks for bringing up this issue.
ReplyDelete- Laura Vandenberg
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ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that forms of communication for the hearing and visually impaired keep evolving, just as with many other forms of communication.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine was part of a project that helped implement audio to many crosswalks in London, Ontario which indicated to the visually impaired when it was safe to cross the road.
-Lesley McLelland