Hearing Loss LIVE! Talks Incidental Hearing

When you are un able to overhear conversations you miss out on incidental learning. This well studied and discussed in the realms of a #HoH or #Deaf student. But how does it look with respect to Adults with #HearingLoss? Being #HardofHearing can be isolating. Through our #Workbooks, #Workshops and #Lipreading #Classes our goal it to help you have better #Communication outcomes.

Join us: Hearing Loss LIVE!

Transcript

Hearing Loss LIVE! talks Incidental Hearing. 

Julia: Hi there, welcome to Hearing Loss LIVE! Sorry. That's gonna make a lot of noise. So, all right, I give up. Welcome to Hearing Loss LIVE!. We hope you are enjoying our stuff. Please remember to like, subscribe, share, maybe leave us a comment or buy us a cup of coffee. Let us know what all of our going ons means to you. Just a reminder, our classes are starting up again in April, we have our lipreading concepts, lip shapes, lips shapes advance. And we haven't set a date, but we'll also have lip reading advanced, which is storytelling. So check out our website for more information. We have a whole page dedicated to our lipreading information. We have, I think 11 workbooks up on the website, maybe 12. And we will continue to put packages together throughout this year. So you can watch on our events page for new workbooks as they come out. We offer this workshop free for one week. If you want to participate in person, every month, we hold our Let's Talk Tuesday, 6pm Mountain Time, so adjust for your timezone. It's the first Tuesday of every month we start the subject and roll out the workshop in person with those who want to learn more and then discuss for about an hour, their personal experiences and what helps and what doesn't. If you joined us last Tuesday, wow, it was an interesting one on incidental hearing, that led to a whole bunch of thoughts, apps, other things that help people-- there's always an educational component, I believe, to our live shops, workshops, and we love it and we love meeting the community. And we learn something every time there's always some takeaway that we can share. At our podcasts we post at the end. Sorry, I total mind blank right there. This month is incidental hearing. Also called incidental learning, which those who maybe are in a teacher for Deaf and hard of hearing or teacher for disability student training type special ed, or maybe a professor or maybe have children with hearing loss, you may have heard the term incidental learning. There's a lot of information. So I won't, you know, quote all of the different studies that we pulled up, but it's basically all that background chatter that happens where kids pick up unknowingly, what's going on around them what's being said, new terminology, maybe a swear word, maybe something they shouldn't know. It's how they learn all of that stuff. But how does that affect an adult who's now new to hearing loss? It's still an incidental learning but it's because you're missing that incidental hearing. A lot of times us with regular hearing, kind of take it for granted. I can sit in a group of people and listen to a conversation a table away from me. I can be in my office working and overhear what's going on outside in maybe the kitchen or front room with my spouse and my son maybe. I can hear the dogs barking and know that there's something wrong with the bark. I-- there's this whole list of things right. And we forget as hearing partners you don't have that. Not on purpose all the time. But what bugs me is the eyeroll. Well miss this that again. Yeah, you missed it again duh. I want to take the eyeroll out of it by sharing experiences that you can take to your hearing partners and maybe be able to discuss it a little more openly on how-- I'm trying to use right words Chelle, but I'm how to effectively have Better communication when that incidental hearing means you might have not heard that you have a doctor's appointment at 2pm. Or I don't know, I'm trying to come up with valid tight times that may be important that you make sure they heard, not just assume, because there was a side conversation, and how hurtful it can be when we kind of get left out of it and need to be in the know. I can't, I can't share that, because I don't have that experience. Right? But I know you can because it is hurtful. We don't think about it as hearing partners. It's kind of a duh moment, I think. You have some thoughts, Chelle, I'll stop babbling.

Chelle: No, you gave us a good start there. I don't have incidental hearing. For me, everybody has to be present in front of me. And we we did a blog on the three golden rules because people don't know'em and we're always talking about. So every time I bring up the three golden rules, I have to go through them all three again. Now I have a blog post on it. And I can send people there there for more information. But really, my communication has to be get my attention, face me and be within six feet. If you're if you're not, if you haven't done all of that I cannot pick anything up with this incidental hearing, I might hear a voice enough to know you're talking. But this is where hearing versus understanding comes in. Because I'm just hearing, I'm not understanding if you didn't follow the three golden rules. If, if I'm in the midst of a family situation and it's early morning for god knows whatever reason. I am not going to be fast. First of all, I'm not a fast morning person. I can be. I can get up and go. But I'm not going to be chatty and cheerful. And even Julia's this way, as a hearing person. It's just this is a personality traight. In the morning, you know, we're there, we need our coffee. We need so much coffee before we can get going. And then it's okay. Si, if at this family event, there was a lot going on. And it was seven in the morning. And it was early. I didn't have my new hearing aids. I had my old hearing aids because my new hearing aids have been sent in to get fixed again and checked out. So I had all my old hearing aids which I hate. I don't like the way life sounds through them. Different brand, different processer, not the way I like to hear even though others like the way they hear through those, that brand. But it wasn't for me. So I didn't have coffee. I didn't have hearing aids in, and all this stuff is going on around me. And people assumed I picked it up on the side. You know, and I didn't know the plan. I didn't know what was going on, there was just one time somebody came up close enough to me and was present. And they're for me, in front of my you know, within six feet, probably actually only three feet away and told me here I want you to video, the event. Okay, I can do that. So when I'm videoing the event, I'm very focused, and catching the event. And again, I missing everything here, the incidental hearing. So I took-- I never did learn everything that was going on at that event. Because nobody took the time to be right in front of me. And like Julia said it's not on purpose a lot of times they just think I pick it up with incidental hearing. And I don't have that. And so there was another ricochet of thoughts that one bounced off the other and I was thinking I gotta bring this up. Now I can't remember what it was. But one on one, that's it, one on one, in a in an environment that doesn't have a lot of background noise. I do have some incidental hearing. But it's gotta be quiet. It's got to be a strong voice. Some projection and usually, you know, as soon as they start talking, I can look over that way. So people I think forget that I don't hear most of the time. Because on one on one, I'm so well. But in the groups that more noise, there's more people, there's more crosstalk. And all of that is not possible for me because I don't have incidental hearing. And I don't pick up the incidental information. Those of us with hearing loss are clueless. A lot of times, we'll even follow along with the crowd, because we don't know where we're going. I remember being with a group of people one time with another hard of hearing friend. And she finally looked at me and she said, d"id you do you know what we're doing or where we're going?" And I said, "No, I don't." We just following the other three people to see where we go. And what happens next. That happens a lot with hearing loss. We didn't pick up on the chatter. So we we missed the whole next event. And but it was still fun. And, you know, I'm a kind of a happy go lucky person most of the time anyway. And we'll just follow along and see what happens next.

Julia: Something we discovered in in putting this together incidental hearing causes-- I mean, we've said this in other podcasts, we put these workshops together and have not realized, I mean, honestly, we throw them on a piece of paper, you could say even a dartboard, right? Throw a dartboard, let's do this subject. We're a little more organized than that. But we don't necessarily start the research till we get closer to that month. And everyone starts to build on and we didn't do it on purpose. But if you look back along are workbooks and workshops, and with taked grief, and getting over the grief and, and all of that incidental hearing is causing grief in your hearing loss partner. I think that's one of the biggest reasons you need to stop the eye roll. They're not hearing that conversation. So instead of the eye roll, how can you say, how do you rephrase frame it? Well, it's simple. I'm going to give a self experience that came up to light for me, while we worked on this, and I was writing it out. And I was the one that wrote a lot about what does the incidental hearing cause grief, it causes isolation, it causes miscommunication. At work, it might cause you to get written up because you talked about something you didn't know you weren't supposed to know about. It, there's this whole list, or you should have known about something that you didn't know about. So I realized in this, I often in later years, escorted my grandmother to her various functions. I am not necessarily an outgoing person, but she loves social stuff, needed a ride, maybe a couple of them needed rides. And so I would go with them. And I realized later-- or while we were writing this, Grandma may or may not stop me during a group conversation and look at me, and I would know to fill in, you know, the six parameter circle type situation. Which by the way, as you get older, you're gonna see you all stand in circles when you go to social events, but on the ride home, or once we got home, she would say, "I couldn't hear it but there was something going on with so and so. Did you catch any of that?" And if I had caught it, I would fill her in on what I'd heard. Whether it needed to be or not, but if there was something I thought she needed to know, when we got home, I would say did you hear and understand-- I probably used here back then because they understand things just finally becoming like that's what it is about-- this so that you know what's going on next. And she could tell me Yeah, I got it. It's on my calendar, we double check it whatever. I think at any age, that's helpful. Stop assuming hearing loss or not right, stop assuming they heard and say, did you get clued into this? Do you need to know more? Do you want to know more? Instead of the assuming. And it again, we talked about it's not going to be perfect, right? It's not going to be perfect every time. Eye roll is going to happen still here and there, might happen both ways. I don't know. So and we talk, you know, marriage versus hearing loss, you've got to start. Maybe mean of me, you got to start, like, defining that role. So that you can work on what you want to work on for better communication. But I think it's as simple as that. I sit down, hey, if you hear something, can you fill me in? I'm gonna miss it, probably. And you might have to remind them before you leave every time, you know. Or, or work on it every every chance you get.

You know, I'm, I'm simple with stuff like that. I'm very teachable on this is what I need for better communication. And I'm like, okay, and then I start just implementing it. And guess what it works for me too. I don't know that I -- that's normal. But that's my normal. So maybe that's why I get on my high horse.

Chelle: It's usually me just figuring it out later on. Oh, that's what happened. Oh, that was what was going on. You know, and just because this popped into my head right now, Julia talks about listening to the table, over from any restaurant, you can hear the conversation behind you. And that's not possible for me. I'm and coming to this conclusion, that communication is not a audible. It's not just what's coming through your ears. Actually, communication is very visual, too. So sometimes my husband and I will compare what he's hearing versus what I'm seeing. So there's a lot in there too. So pay attention to the visual that does help. I do like to people watch a lot. And communication is, has a lot of visual aspects. So don't forget that. The incidental hearing, incidental information, incidental learning. It's been quite a trip and I've enjoyed the road and our discussions on it. It, it does help people become more aware of how much we're missing, I think. Sometimes, I don't know even know how much I'm missing. Sometimes. Maybe somebody thought they were talking right to me, but they were out of eyeshot, and it was in a crowd. So I just totally missed it. And because I don't reply, I'm rude. And this goes back to another theme of ours on misconceptions, and hearing loss. Everything does kind of build on each other. It's been a hard one to describe. And we did do a lot of research for this. But it's there, we miss it. learning happens all the time with doesn't quit when we get out of school. My learning has never stopped. So incidental information is important. And that's why you get accommodations, like Julia was talking about. ASR automatic speech recognition apps, and CART. CART has filled me and which is live captioning by a human person, which is what Julia does. She's been my incidental hearing for years. It does help

Julia: Yeah. And I let I let the folks I'm working for decide how much incidental hearing they want to have. I have students who don't want the chatter behind them. And I have other students like fill me in what's the gossip? I hear it, I'm gonna give it to them. You know, that's what I'm there to do. So. Yeah. Well, that might piss some people off that I say that out loud. But that's what I do. I'm there for my student. I let them have the transcript that's between them and their disability center. But Chelle is my friend as well. So her and I and sometimes I've had to keep my mouth shut on the incidental hearing. We went and we can talk about that at the end of the month, but because of ethics, but. Anything else before we.. Okay, all right. We hope you are enjoying our workshop series will continue it through the rest of this year. You get this video for one week free. Then it will go to our workbook packages where you get a work Book an audio and transcript and the video access to the video on our private YouTube. Sorry?

Chelle: I just want to say something on the latest workbook Julia just finished which is confidence with hearing loss. And we give you have a set of tasks to do to help you build your confidence in the workbook. So it's pretty cool. 

Julia: Yeah,

it was really cool. And then was-- No. What did we do hearing versus understanding will come out here pretty shortly as well that when I'm I'm still working on the workbook. We do put a lot of time into giving you something that you can read experiences, then have a place to write your own experiences and you can, you know, print as many pages of the journaling as you want. So, we do like them. We think they're pretty cool. Let's see next week we'll have our follow up and let you know what we learned and we hope you are enjoying our blogs, podcasts and audio podcast. 

Bye!