Charities for deaf people call for more see-through face masks

[Northerner]

See-through face masks should be made widely available, leading deaf charities have said, warning that the growing use of face coverings is causing communication difficulties among the 12 million people in the UK who are deaf or have some form of hearing loss.

Face coverings must be worn in England on public transport, and by hospital visitors and outpatients, while all hospital staff must wear surgical masks. Face coverings have also been recommended more widely, including in Scotland, in cases where social distancing is difficult.

“The main issue is that people who are deaf and have hearing loss rely heavily on visual clues for effective communication – that includes body language, gestures, facial expression and lip-reading,” said Ayla Ozmen, head of research and policy at Action on Hearing Loss. “British sign language (BSL) users also rely heavily on seeing lip patterns as well as facial expressions to understand BSL.”

Charities for deaf people call for more see-through face masks

Face coverings causing communication difficulties for the 12m people in UK who are deaf or have hearing loss

www.theguardian.com

Must admit, something that hadn't occurred to me

 

[Lindarose]

I suffer with hearing loss and wear hearing aids and can totally equate with this subject. It’s always been a bit of a struggle for me especially in the work place but now more than ever!
It becomes quite stressful trying to understand people and embarrassing to have to ask them to repeat themselves.

 

[trophywench]

We serve on a committee where both the Chair and Sec are very deaf and wear those 'in ear' hearing aids but unless you speak directly facing either of them, they can't hear you. That can be tricky to negotiate at times until you get used to it and remember. Apparently so I was reading yesterday, if you happen to be the 'lip-speaking' assistant of a deaf person who doesn't do BSL, you don't need to wear a mask in certain circumstances. (I seriously wonder how badly all of 'this lot' will affect elderly parents of some Asian families in healthcare situations.)

 

[JJay]

Hear, hear! (sorry🙂) At last this problem has been recognised.

I thought my hearing aids were malfunctioning when I was struggling to understand mask-wearing shop assistants etc before it occurred to me that I actually rely on lip-reading a lot more than I realised.

I don't need a 'lip-speaking' assistant but would I be justified in asking a mask-wearer to remove it pro tem for my benefit (and theirs, since they wouldn't need to repeat themselves) ?

 

[Barbie1]

I did find myself leaning too close to a mask wearing shop assistant the other day as I couldn’t hear/read her. Had to apologise of course, but yes we do rely so much on the visual when you don’t hear so well.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

(I seriously wonder how badly all of 'this lot' will affect elderly parents of some Asian families in healthcare situations.)

Yes, I wonder how that works generally (not just in healthcare situations) in Asian countries where mask-wearing is common?

 

[trophywench]

They weren't the countries I was thinking of Bruce - but must be difficult specifically for the deaf in eg Japan.

 

[mikeyB]

The difficulty in Japanese and Chinese is that they are tonal languages - the meaning of a word can change depending on how it is spoken.

I’ll ask a friend who is fluent in Japanese how they deal with deafness and let you know.