Gael Hannan

Gael Hannan is an author, speaker and advocate on hearing loss issues. In addition to her weekly blog at the Better Hearing Consumer, which has a passionate international following, Gael has written two acclaimed books, “The Way I Hear It: A Life with Hearing Loss”and “Hear & Beyond: Live Skillfully with Hearing Loss”, written with Shari Eberts. She is regularly invited to present her uniquely humorous and insightful work to appreciative audiences around the world. Gael has received many awards for her work that advocates for individuals to become more knowledgeable and successful at dealing with their hearing loss and a more inclusive society for them to live in.

Featured image for ““Dad, Wear Your Hearing Aids!””

“Dad, Wear Your Hearing Aids!”

It’s probably not an easy thing to learn that your two year-old daughter has permanent hearing loss. You worry, because she is also a sensitive child for whom the sky will be always bluer and the grass always greener than for some other people. That’s how my father, a few years ago, described my mother’s discovery that my willful behavior

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Don’t Tell Me What to Call Myself

Have you ever been tossed on the stormy seas of hearing loss nomenclature? That’s the term or terms applied to someone or something, and in the hearing loss and deaf worlds it’s what you’re called if you have it, if you are it, if you have some of it, or if you ain’t got none of it. Deaf. Deafened. A

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My Alphabet Sound Soup

I am not usually a fan of alphabet lists. You know the kind – M.O.T.H.E.R is spelled out starting with M is for the Milk you made me drink, O is for the Overcoat that was ugly but you said who-cares-it-will-keep-you-warm …and so on. But on a long cross-country flight, I was thinking about blog topics and started doodling with

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How to Bluff Like a Pro

People with hearing loss bluff. It’s what we do, a basic fact of our lives. We pretend to understand what’s being said and what new direction the conversation is heading (if we got it in the first place), whereas in reality we have lost the connection and so we fake it. It’s not that we want to bluff. Exactly the

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Sounding Out the New House

They say that moving into a new house is high on the stress list—packing, physical exertion, excitement about a new place and yearning for the old, figuring out which way the cupboard doors open or what light a switch turns on, etc. And then there’s getting used to all those the new house noises. A person with hearing loss needs time

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Listening Skills: The Eyes Have It!

This week, my guest writer Kathi Mestayer muses on how people with hearing loss depend on two types of information in a conversation. Whew! Listening Skills: The Eyes Have It! by Kathi Mestayer I used to think of hearing as being about sound, volume, clarity, etc. And it surely is. But it is also about the other signals we use

Featured image for “Best of the Better Hearing Consumer: What You SHOULD Say to People with Hearing Loss”

Best of the Better Hearing Consumer: What You SHOULD Say to People with Hearing Loss

Recently several articles on what NOT to say to deaf people have been floating on Facebook. I understand the writers’ exasperation, having been on the receiving end of many of the comments. Although I’m no longer insulted by most of them, once in a while I have to grab my chin to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor.

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A Story of 3 Women

This has been quite a summer – lots of sun and Pity Party-ing with the three-headed monster of tinnitus, hyperacusis and breaking in new hearing aids. But to add some perspective – it could always be worse. And it helps to remember that, whatever our issues, we’re always in the company of millions of people living and dealing with similar challenges.

Featured image for “Best of the Better Hearing Consumer – What a HoH Needs to Know”

Best of the Better Hearing Consumer – What a HoH Needs to Know

While I’m on vacation, I thought you might enjoy this favorite post from 2015. Note: Person with hearing loss = hard of hearing person = HoH She did it again—she started talking to me from another room. His baseball cap shades his eyes, and I always have to ask him to take it off. People with

Featured image for “Persevere (The Hard of Hearing Fencer)”

Persevere (The Hard of Hearing Fencer)

I am delighted to welcome this guest post by Jennifer Gibson. She is passionate about sports, especially fencing, and in this article she explains that it takes more than a sharp sword to overcome communication obstacles. online pharmacy buy stromectol with best prices today in the USA By Jennifer Gibson Growing up with a severe hearing loss taught me a