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.

Why Did the Chicken Man Get Hearing Aids?

The other day, I did a presentation of Sound Sense, the Hearing Foundation of Canada’s elementary noise-induced hearing loss educational program, to a class of Grade 4 students. During the fun session, we ask the 9 and 10 year-old kids about the noisy activities or really loud experiences in their lives. Some of the usual responses include irritating baby brothers

EAR RAGE! (The Aha! Moment)

The Scene: In a salon, a woman sits down in a chair and removes the towel from her wet hair. She puts her hearing aids back in and looks at herself in the mirror, chatting to the stylist. Tell me honestly, do my hearing aids show? I mean, like a lot? I know I’ve always worn my hair long to cover my

Does My Baby Have My Hearing Loss?

If you’re a parent – what did you worry about when expecting your first child? Probably the standards – will all the regular bits be in good working order, will it be healthy and maybe, as a bonus, will it be gorgeous, too? If you’re a hearing parent, you probably did not worry about your baby being born deaf. And

Full Facial Eclipse: Why I Gave Up Sports for Speechreading

November is a month of events that inspire emotions – Remembrance Day (grief), American Thanksgiving (gratitude), the falling of the leaves (awe), and the release of the new Beaujolais (love). It’s also Movember, the innovative fundraising and awareness event about men’s health issues, specifically prostate and testicular cancer. During Movember-in-November, men show their support by sprouting facial hair all over their upper lips

Best of Gael Hannan: Lament for a HOH

Do you know what really bugs me about being hard of hearing? I simply detest the term hard of hearing. What does that mean, anyway? What do those words tell you about me, or the way I communicate? I need a better term to describe myself, but the choice is limited: hard of hearing, a person with hearing loss, hearing-impaired, deaf

Hearing the Score – Accessible Concerts for HoHs

The house lights finally dimmed and the stage lights came up. The audience stopped talking and fidgeting, and our eyes burned holes on the stage, willing Alfie Boe to come out and start singing. (If you haven’t heard of him, I’m happy to wait while you take a moment to look him up.) I don’t normally ‘do’ concerts; my ears

Featured image for “I Tawt I Heard a Puddy-Tat!”

I Tawt I Heard a Puddy-Tat!

If I lived alone, my house could be filled to the attic rafters with varmints and I might not know it. My house issn’t dirty, but I simply wouldn’t hear an animal going about its business. The critter would put the word out to his friends and soon it would be a wildlife open house. A zoo of raccoons, mice, birds and

Featured image for “Captioning – Taking the Words Right Out of My Mouth”

Captioning – Taking the Words Right Out of My Mouth

This is a gushy, mushy love blog about captioning. Speech is a many-splendored and multi-faceted thing for the person with hearing loss who communicates through the spoken word. To understand speech, we must see it as well as hear it, observing speech on the speaker’s face or reading it in its written form. Captioning, or CART, is the exquisite real-time, verbatim

Featured image for “A HoH On The Road: Hearing Loss Travel Tips”

A HoH On The Road: Hearing Loss Travel Tips

Does your hearing loss prevent you from traveling, worrying about potential problems on the trip? Get over it – communication problems can happen anywhere – at home OR away. Mind you, some situations are more challenging than others. The following is my personal ultimate in bad ‘traveling-with-hearing-loss’ experiences, when I was 20 and living in northern Australia. In the dark hours

Te Ara Ora: A Journey of Hearing Loss-to-Wellness

Gael’s Note: My guest blogger this week is my friend Wanda Gower-James from Gisborne, New Zealand. I met Wanda in 2007 when I was speaking to the New Zealand Hearing Association in Christchurch. A year later she received a cochlear implant, and she shares this beautiful before and after story of her journey. Te Ara Ora is Maori for ‘the