Better Hearing Consumer

I adore Christmas, especially the tingle-inducing music.  But this holiday season, I’m wondering—when did I lose the ability to sing it?  (Some in my family would tell you that I never had that ability, but they’re such kidders. They know I can sing well—if I manage to stay on key.) Growing up, I sang in Christmas choirs (being flanked fore and

Katherine Bouton is a renowned writer on hearing loss issues. This week, she looks at books that make great gifts for people affected by hearing loss.   You Have to Read This by Katherine Bouton   The holidays are upon us – and that means gifts. For your friends and family with hearing loss, I’d like to suggest a gift

“Gael, we’re going to give you a cochlear implant!” I looked at the doctor blankly for a moment. Then, “You are?” “Yes, we are.” He paused, “Do you want a CI?” And that was the moment my life changed – again. How did I really feel about getting a cochlear implant (CI)? For years I’d been told  that in spite of

I have a small bone to pick with people who can hear well. It’s not that I begrudge them their hearing—but do they have to be so show-offy about it? These people let you know when they hear a pin drop. They can understand what’s being said way over there. They can understand speech in noisy situations—on a roller coaster, for example. And that’s

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

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

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

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

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

 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