Better Hearing Consumer

  by Kerry Roberts Born in 1970 in rural Newfoundland, I had a genetic hearing impairment that was not immediately identified. In my earliest years, the world sounded whole. I laughed, played, and listened, as well as any child might! When my music-making family came together, the music was always present for me in a different way. It lived quietly

  Are you good at congratulating yourself? How often do you tell yourself, hey, I did that, Good for Me! For better mental health, we need to pat ourselves on the back more often, especially for following through on a positive intention. There are qualifications to this, however. If I beat my grandson at cribbage (which I just did), I

  Whenever someone hears a sound that’s outside my range of hearing or vision – a bird, perhaps, a creature skittering in the walls, a distant vehicle noise – my go-to reaction is amazement. Their upward chin-jerk and slight narrowing of eyes tells me they’re listening hard to – something. I never fail to rise to the bait and, both

I’m making some New Year’s hearing resolutions. They aren’t radically different from my vows of previous years, some of which I’ve kept. Some of them. For a while. But even though my resolutions might be repetitive, the great thing about New Year’s is that it is a NEW YEAR. “Hope springs eternal” wrote the poet Alexander Pope. Let’s be optimistic

I’m shocked. Yesterday, I discovered a word I’ve been mispronouncing for my entire life. “Apossle” is the correct way to say what I’ve always expressed as “aposTle”. The ‘t’ is in the spelling, not the telling. But when hearing people heard me make that lovely tick of a t-sound, why did no one tell me? In fairness, my crowd isn’t

  Have you ever felt as if you are caught between two worlds – the hearing one and a deaf or hearing loss one? Lately, I’ve noticed more social media posts venting frustrations about not fitting in to either world or being misunderstood by both. As a person with lifelong and profound hearing loss, I have experienced some of this

  Every year, hearing health advocates write meant-to-be helpful articles (this is another one) on how people with hearing loss can make it through the holidays without wanting to murder their family and friends. And yes, those people, the ones who love you, but apparently not enough to remember what you need, even though you reminded them, like, five minutes

  It’s time. You’re pretty sure you need a hearing aid, maybe two. You’re having trouble following conversations, from any direction, and you know it’s not just because other people mumble. Although they do. With a deep breath and a pathetic cry of why me, you see a hearing care professional for a hearing assessment (so much fun). You pretend

When people with hearing loss turn out the lights at night, what comes next? All sorts of things, but usually not more conversation. One of our fundamental truths: the better the lighting, the better we communicate. During the day, there is light. During the dark hours, we turn on the lights. But at bedtime, when the lights, hearing aids and

As I waited for a recent flight, I passed some time watching the couple sitting across from me have a discussion. I couldn’t hear them and I had no clue to their topic, but I had nothing else to do and I’m a seasoned reader of faces. I was fully engrossed in their minor argument based solely on lip movements,