Hear ye, hear ye! Tales of Hearing Loss

 

Hearing loss has taught me many things about speech and communication. I’ve gained an appreciation of the value of projecting one’s voice; of speaking clearly, slowly, in complete sentences while making eye contact with another person. I have let go of the pleasure of witty repartee and of the expectation that one can have meaningful communication in noisy or crowded situations.

“Hear” are some of the observations I’ve made while coping with hearing loss:  

1.   Hearing is different than understanding. The spoken word consists of sounds, but the meaning of those sounds is what is important. Understanding is not necessarily a matter of the loudness of a person’s voice. It also includes the clarity of thought that is transferred to speech, enunciation, sentence structure, and context. One who speaks a language that is foreign to the listener may be loud enough to be heard but the listener may have no clue as to their meaning if he doesn’t speak that language.

2.   What we see or hear is partly determined by what we expect to see and hear. As hearing loss grows the brain begins to fill in the gaps with what it expects is being said. The result can be a minor misunderstanding; an amusing one; or, a disaster.

3.   It is not necessarily difficult to understand a person who stands in front of you; who makes eye contact with you and who speaks intentionally with something to say. However, like the big trucks that carry a sign “If you can’t see my mirror, I can’t see you,” if I cannot see your eyes, my hearing loss may eviscerate my understanding of your words.

4.   Many sounds, consonants, and vowels are soft and difficult to distinguish. Enunciation with patterned speech (rather than monotone speech pattern) can make a significant difference.

5.   Names and pronouns are a deadly mix when more than one person is being referenced. Best to use the name of the person or object and avoid or limit the use of pronouns. With society moving towards pronouns like “they” instead of “he” or “she” it becomes even more difficult to link the name to the pronoun.

6.   Hearing loss impacts cognitive understanding, partly, I suppose because the strain to hear triggers tension or frustration which interferes with and worsens comprehension. (It is true, but easier said than done, that calm, sensitive listening enhances understanding.) 

7.   Beginning a conversation, or a new topic in a conversation, with the KEY WORD of the topic such as the name of the person, place, or object to be discussed is to risk leaving your listener in the dust of wondering who or what you are now suddenly talking about. The brain needs a moment to adjust to the introduction of a new topic. An easy solution is to give an introductory phrase or sentence to signal a change in topic. Examples of introductory phrases to introduce a new subject or change the subject can be throw-away phrases such as: “By the way, I wanted to mention something about so-and-so.” Or: “On different topic, I was thinking about XXXXX.” Thus, the KEY word isn’t stated FIRST in your sentence when your listener has no reason to expect it.

8.   The English language is structured loosely but generally follows the pattern of subject-verb-object. Throw in an adverb or an adjective now and then and we’re ok. But some speakers speak before they think, “so-to-speak,” and their sentences are all a jumble of words. While this can reflect incoherent brain patterns in the speaker, the result for a listener with hearing loss can be very disjointed. Frequent insertion of parenthetical thoughts on unrelated topics makes things worse. Speaking slowly and clearly (one thought at a time) allows for communication to be satisfying to both parties. Some people don’t use complete sentences at all, but tend to “bark,” “chirp,” or “blurt out” sounds or phrases. This pattern is more deeply embedded in people’s brain, chemistry, breath, and habits and is much more difficult to change. ADHD sufferers would be good examples of folks whose words just come tumbling out in all directions. There’s no easy fix to this but, just to acknowledge the reality, there are people whose conversation I simply cannot follow even when I hear their words.

9.   In a car, most of us speak facing forward and not necessarily turning to the other person. Given the loud noise of the street, engine and outside sounds, car conversations are difficult if the speech is directed to the window or the back of the front seat. Being confined to the back seat all but guarantees no participation in conversations from the front seat.

10.                Fortunately, very few people turn their backs on their listeners and continue speaking as they walk away. But I have known one or two friends who have the habit of doing this: as they walk away from you, they continue talking! This is neither polite nor effective.

11.                Some people are “all ears” and hear, whether they want to or not, the conversations going on around them. But others pay no attention and those with hearing loss usually have no choice in the matter. Calling someone by name may or may not get their attention if they’ve trained their brains to ignore general speech around them. If you wish to speak to me, first get my attention by addressing me by name and to my face, thus indicating a desire to speak to me!

12.                I never realized until dealing with hearing loss how many ventriloquists exist in the world: people who speak without moving their lips or without any air passing through them! I don’t know how they can be so unaware or not notice how often others ask them either to speak up or repeat themselves. Some people are, I assume, simply shy; others may be unsure of themselves and even lack confidence in their own statements. Some may be accustomed to talking out loud to themselves without regard to whether anyone else hears or cares. Are you one such person?

13.                Some cultures and some people speak very fast. Other languages or individuals add or drop vowels or consonants from words. Italians add an ‘a’ to the end of words while some Hindi or other speakers drop the ‘a’ at the end. (“Yoga” is sometimes written and pronounced in India as simply “yog.”). For clarity of speech, adding a sound is better than dropping one.

14.                Swami Kriyananda (my teacher) pointed out the tendency of speakers to drop the pitch and volume of words at the end of either the sentence or the word. Perhaps because they’ve run out of breath or energy, and they “swallow” the last word. A solution to this common tendency is to raise the pitch at the end. It makes for more interesting and clear communication. (This is related to diaphragmatic breathing, keeping the chest up and like trained singers, speaking consciously.)

15.                I like to joke that I can eat, talk, or listen but I can only do one of these at a time. So, when sharing a meal, I either need to chew, listen to you, or speak but only one of these at a time!

16.                Monotone speakers are either dull or maybe just sound dull as if slightly drugged. Without some variation in emphasis, for example emphasizing a key word like a person’s name, such speakers risk being ignored. Like Italians famous for talking with their hands, some liveliness, color, and modulation in speech is both effective and interesting.

17.                Suffice to say, I must walk a line between saying “What” so frequently that I might be mistaken for a parrot; or, simply staying out of many conversations and miss valuable sharing. There are numerous conversations I refrain from entering or I just simply smile and nod or offer some monosyllabic utterance to indicate that I’m still conscious. I have all too frequently listened to someone speaking and not even had a clue what they were talking about. Sad, but true.

18.                Despite both their expense and sophistication, hearing aids, while essential for many of us, can NEVER substitute for natural and efficient hearing.

19.                Captions are a great gift to humanity! There are movies out there whose directors seem to specialize in hiring ventriloquists. My phone now has captioning: yeah!

20.                It is simply amazing to me that humans EVER understand each other. It seems that communication is like a game of chance, or to misquote Forrest, Forrest Gump, like a box of chocolates (“You never know what you’re gonna’ hear.”). 

 

Thank you for “listening” even though I have no expectations as to this changing the conversations I encounter. 

 My favorite chant these days is “Listen, listen, listen” by Paramhansa Yogananda.

 

Swami Hrimananda

Hear ye, hear ye: what does it take to hear ye?

I wear hearing aids and in the long process of getting to this point I’ve learned a lot about communication, about listening, hearing, and understanding. Each of these is a different aspect of the human interactions!

It’s axiomatic, or, well, at least a commonly heard joke, that women’s voices are more difficult (for men?) to hear! One could say more, but, what’s the point, I’d just lose most of my readers! I concur, however, with this time-honored adage in that at least some women’s voices are more difficult to hear. Most audiologists will mumble that it’s due to their higher pitch, but there’s more to it than that, at least sometimes. But truly, hearing loss is not merely about gender differences! So, don’t write me off too soon, ok?

Hearing differs from listening in that it takes the intention of listening to hear with understanding. In some cases, “not hearing” can mean either no sound was heard, or, more likely, I heard but I didn’t understand the words or the meaning of the words (again, these are two different things.) It may mean that “I don’t like you, or what you are saying, so I choose to ignore what you said!”

I sometimes hear the words perfectly well enough, but have no idea what they mean. Apart from brain dysfunction (always a possibility), I am referring to the fact (at first, it was shocking to me to come to grips with this) that without some context, or more complete explanation, or at least a preamble, it is sometimes impossible to know what a person is talking about even when the words are perfectly clear and understandable.

A common issue I’ve noticed is the use of too many pronouns: “Did you hear what she said?” “Who?” “No, what did she say?” Or, changing the subject without warning or introduction.

An even more common issue, and this relates in part to hearing loss, is to have another person begin a sentence with the key word or a person’s name. “Alice is decided to withdraw her name.” “Who?” “What did you say?” When this happens to me, I’m stuck back at the first word trying to figure out the “who” and entirely miss the rest of the sentence. A simple solution, for a conscious speaker in the presence of a person with hearing loss, is to always begin a sentence with some throwaway introductory words. “You know what I just heard? Alice…(pause)….has decided to withdraw her name from the auction drawing.”

I want to emphasize the importance of key words such as names, proper nouns, decisive adjectives and so on. Pronouncing key words consciously is critical to effective communication, both intimate and public.

Not enough can be said about the value of a preamble: “Do you have a minute? I wanted to mention to you something about Alice.” Speaking of preambles: “What’s my name?” Repeat: “What my name?” If you want to talk to me, use my name before launching into your dialogue. Of course, if I’m already nose to nose with you, that’s not necessary, but, otherwise, how about a simple, “Hriman, oh hi! You gotta minute?”

It may be hearing loss, age, or simply staying focused in my own boundaries, but I purposely DO NOT listen to conversations of other people. If you suddenly begin talking to me, even as I pass you, I may just keep walking. Not because I’m a jerk (which I suppose I can be, sometimes, too), but because I don’t wish to get caught up in idle conversations. So, if someone like me is not facing you, eye to eye, toe to toe, please start your sentence with my name, pause, and then say something “throw away” like “Oh, Hriman,……, there’s something I wanted to mention to you.” Then, as my ship comes about face, we can talk of more important matters!

Then there are the miscreants who deign to talk to me from another room. When I can, I simply ignore such people. Or, how about the ones who turn their back on you as they talk and even walk away in the opposite direction as they are speaking to you! Egads!!!! For some, it’s simply an impolite habit, but I suspect it might also represent a lack of commitment to the conversation; or, a lack of clarity or confidence in what he or she has to say. Or, and we all probably do this: not caring whether we are heard and liking the idea that we’ve said our piece aloud!

Sometimes there can be a good reason for getting it off our chest, regardless of whether the other person hears us fully! In any case, these half-way speakers are frustrating to be around and they can come across as rude, arrogant or at best thoughtless. I cannot help but feel that if you have self-respect for what you have to say and you wish to communicate it, and respect for your listener, it would do well to take the time to do so as to be heard.  

I’ve met quite a few ventriloquists in my day. It’s really quite amazing to hear (or not) how many can speak without moving their lips; or, without any air passing through them! Why do some do this? Shyness, habit, lack of confidence or sometimes simply a soft-spoken, internalized voice?

I’ve always admired my friend and teacher, Swami Kriyananda, for, inter alia, his skill at projecting his voice. Those of us with hearing loss should, in early stages, as yet not acknowledged, pay attention to how often we say “What?” But those with too soft of voices should also pay attention to how often they are asked to repeat themselves. If the latter, learn to open your mouth, move your lips, and use your lungs and chest to project your voice into the face or into the space occupied by your listener(s)!

I look back over many years of being with Swami Kriyananda. His hearing loss grew steadily worse until it became acute by the end of his life. I look back and wonder how much of his tendency to avoid conversation at meals was due to the difficulty of hearing while eating and in the challenge presented by surround-sound conversations, oft interrupted by others, confounded by the ambient noise of dishes, music, etc.

Indeed, I, too find, unfortunately, that I can’t chew food and listen at the same time. As I share many meals with friends and in public, it becomes a choice of eating or listening, but not at the same time. 

Standing in a crowded room holding a small plate of snacks with conversations around me 360⁰  makes it impossible to have an understandable conversation.

Ever see those big trucks that have a sign on them that says “If you can’t see my mirror(s), I can’t see you?” Ditto for my eyes! If I can’t see your eyes and vice versa in a conversation, the odds are very good I’m not going to “hear” you (meaning, either the words or the meaning or both).

I couldn’t possibly count the number of times someone spoke to me and I didn’t understand a word. It happens too frequently. Sometimes I even get slightly nauseous, like I’m drowning, when I can’t hear or understand the words.

Another shocking revelation (for me, at least) has been the degree to which my expectation of what a person is saying determines what I think I just heard! You’ve read, often perhaps, about the illusion of seeing a snake on the path ahead of you (perhaps in dim light, like dusk), reacting with fear, and then discovering that the snake is only a rope left on the ground? Yup, that’s what I am talking about!

I have learned that the same happens with sight, as well: especially under stress, as in when I am frantically looking for something, say, in various drawers. Many a time I discovered that based on the intensity of my focus and expectation I would momentarily think I saw what I was looking for only to discover (usually in a flash) that the object is something else.

This is what happens, I believe, to all of us when we are listening to others. I’ve seen or heard of some movie or maybe a quote from Churchhill (no, it was FDR, I think), who went around a room of partygoers saying something like, “I killed my mother.” He discovered that no one reacted because no one “heard” what he said because the words did not fit what his hearer expected to hear nor the context (of the party)!

Many a time I have been embarrassed for the fact that what I thought I heard was the opposite of what was said: like FDR’s experiment, I would end up smiling my congratulations when instead I should have been expressing sympathy! Sigh!

Now, let’s move up to left vs right brain conversation. When I was younger I could engage in that “witty repartee” that is characteristic of young, high metabolizing brains. I can still do this, but my métier as a man of wisdom and considerable life experience (I’m partly joking, here) leaves me somewhat uninterested in “witty repartee!”

My wife likes to tell friends how at a complete loss I am during our weekly staff meetings, when, surrounded only by women, I don’t have clue what they are talking about. An abundant use of pronouns, incomplete sentences, and rapid-fire changes in subject matter, can leave my head spinning: “clueless,” as it were, “in Seattle.”

The issue is, sometimes, a gender difference, but by NO means always. It’s really, or so I believe, a question of patterns of thought and speech: in short, left vs right brain. Men have right brains too, just as women have considerable prowess with their left brains! Still, brains do rule the day and no one in our society seems to have thrown out the “women are more intuitive” cliché quite yet. My own experience does confirm this, at least some of the time.

So, we are past the gender thing and have emerged into the human brain.  I’m not authority on brains but I think it’s not as simple as left vs right. There are some people whose speech patterns are discombobulated: they don’t adhere to the time honored concept that a sentence begins with a subject that gets some traction by using a verb that takes aims in the direction of an object. This idea just isn’t there for some brains. I don’t know much about “Attention-deficit disorder” or Obsessive-compulsive disorder” and to make reference to it here may be hugely inaccurate, but I throw it into the brain soup, just in case it might complete someone’s alphabet.  In any case and in a simple way, some people’s minds work at a different pace then their mouth.

Blurt-ers simply speak whatever channels through their mind. The result is disconcerting, often dismaying, and sometimes poorly said and all too often negative. Many, however, simply skip saying what they started in favor of the latest thought that brightens their bulb. This leaves the rest of us hanging on the edge of a steep cliff of cognition.

Then there are the infamous Mumblers. Some haven’t moved their lips since birth. Others are perhaps too are shy or hesitant to put their speech out into clear view. Perhaps they fear being wrong or being critiqued. Fear of critique, I have found, is balanced by a critical mind that expects from others what they, themselves, are inclined to do.

Suffice to say, I have to walk a line between saying “What” so frequently that I might be mistaken for a parrot; or, simply staying out of many conversations and miss a valuable sharing. There are numerous conversations I refrain from entering or I just simply smile and nod or offer some offhand monosyllabic utterance to indicate that I haven’t had a stroke.

If I judge that I need to pay attention and say “What?” I will but I am cautious. People frown upon those whose conversation is limited to repeating “What.” No doubt there are times when I misjudge and lose important information. After all, my work is very with and for people, so missteps do happen.

By the end, which is coming hopefully soon, it gets down to the fact that it is simply amazing that humans understand each other. It seems that communication is like a game of chance, or to quote Forest, Forest Gump: a box of chocolates (“You never know what you’re gonna’ get.”).

Ultimately, truth is, I’m just letting off steam: can you hear it hiss? Nothing I write here will actually change the conditions one faces due to hearing loss! Hearing aids are no substitute for good hearing. 

And I suppose you should remind me to “Be the change I seek.” Eh?

My favorite chant these days is “Listen, listen, listen” by Paramhansa Yogananda.

Thanks for hearing me out.

Hrimananda