The Monologue Strategy — If You Can’t Hear, Just Dominate the Conversation
Have you encountered people who speak loud and long, dominating conversations by turning a dialogue into a monologue? Maybe the loud person was in another group, but so loud that s/he interfered with the conversation you were trying to have? If you’ve had these experiences, you likely wondered why the person was talking so loudly and why they…
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Hearing, Listening, and Understanding
During counseling with a patient the other day I was asked to explain briefly the difference between hearing, listening, and understanding. The request was, “Make it easy and simple for me so when I talk to my family I can educate them about the differences, how these terms relate to my hearing loss and how…
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Hearing Loss and Vision Problems Go Together as We Age
Preliminary research from Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco suggests certain vision problems in older adults is associated with a 50% higher risk of hearing loss. Here is a summary of the research by Marilyn Schneck and colleagues: 446 adults with a mean age of 79.9 years had their hearing screened and underwent…
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Best of all Time: Flying the Friendly Skies with Hearing Aids
This post, originally published in April of 2017, is “most read and shared,” though perhaps not “best.” Despite United’s persistent efforts to discourage air travel for people who are teenagers, wear leggings, or have assigned seats, it’s likely that many readers have a trip planned by air in the near future. Those who wear hearing…
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What’s a Young Voice Anyway? Vocal Fry is Hip But Unintelligible
This is the third and final post in the short series on why some voices are difficult to hear, even with hearing aids. The first two posts considered aging effects on voicing and some exercises to mitigate those effects. Today’s post veers in a different direction – to voicing and voicing aberrations among the young.…
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