35 misconceptions about being deaf or hard of hearing
Hearing loss is no joke
Here are some misconceptions about deafness, deafblindness, and communication that we have come across in our training courses. Some of them may be obvious, others not. If you can answer all of these, then congratulations – you are halfway to becoming deaf aware and knowledgeable about deafness. If not, then perhaps it would be a good idea to come and find out more on a training course with 121 Captions to learn what deafness really means. After all, 10 million people in the UK and 360 million people in the world struggle with some degree of hearing loss.
Test your assumptions about hearing loss
The most common misconceptions are highlighted in bold.
- All people with a hearing loss use sign language
- A hearing aid makes you hear normally, all deaf people have one – or a cochlear implant
- Deaf people cannot speak or speak funny
- A cochlear implant restores hearing
- All people with a hearing loss lipread
- All deaf people use interpreters
- There are no deafblind people round here
- Deafblind people can’t get out and about
- Deafblind people cannot communicate, deafblindness means you cannot see or hear at all
- Presbyacusis only affects older people
- Everyone with a hearing loss can use a telephone with a hearing aid or cochlear implant
- A loop system is suitable for all people with a hearing loss who do not sign
- Hearing Dogs can respond to all noises
- Hard of hearing people are all old
- Hard of hearing people do not have the same problems as deaf people
- A person with a hearing loss will understand you better if you shout
- I don’t need to make my business accessible – I have no deaf customers
- Deaf people don’t want to talk to me, I couldn’t communicate with them anyway, I would have to learn sign language to do so.
- A hearing aid user or a cochlear implant user can hear me if I shout their name across a crowded room
- Hearing impaired people only hear (or see) what they want to” hear”, I think they’re pretending not to understand me
- You must use simple English when talking to a person with hearing loss
- A sign language user cannot read subtitles
- Deafblind people cannot go out by themselves
- Deaf people do not lose any more hearing
- People with hearing loss are not allowed to drive
- Deaf people are not as intelligent as hearing people
- All people with hearing loss want to be hearing
- Most deaf people have deaf parents
- All hearing impaired people can communicate with each other
- All hearing impaired people understand deaf culture
- BSL (British Sign language) is the same as ASL (American Sign Language) and AUSLAN (Australian Sign Language).
- Sign language is a collection of gestures similar to mime
- Sign language users do not have cochlear implants
- People with a hearing loss bring their own interpreters with them
- Deafness won’t happen to me.
To find out more about our bespoke training courses, contact us.
I would add…
36. Hard of hearing people will understand you better if you shout. After all, if someone is hard of hearing or not completely deaf, you just need to speak to them loudly and they will be able to understand what you’re saying, right?
Not true. A hard of hearing person may not be able to understand you completely. It is like with a blind person. Someone may be partly blind meaning that they are able to see but not very well. Their vision may be super blurry and the only thing they can distinguish are certain colors. Usually, they may not be able to interpret those colors. It is something they can see but they can’t interpret or understand it. That is like with hard of hearing people. They may be able to hear something but it may be fractured or muffled, making them unable to understand it. It is like when you try to listen to sound at least 5 feet under water. People may be having a conversation above the water, but you wouldn’t be able to understand what they were talking about right? Maybe you could catch a few words here and there, but it isn’t as accurate as you would think. Does that make sense?