Do face masks make it more difficult to communicate?

Item

Title (Dublin Core)

Description (Dublin Core)

As someone who is Hard of Hearing, I worry about returning to work in the fall. I never realized how much I rely on lip and expression reading before now. With masks and zoom meetings I struggle to understand conversations that normally would be simple. I have hearing aids but unfortunately they do not help much when context clues are deprived. Soft spoken, mumblers, low voices are all drowned out into the background. I search peoples eyes for clues, are they laughing? Are they concerned? In my Deaf and HoH support group the threads are now saturated with frustrated people just venting. Something as simple as a trip to the grocery store now requires a pad and pencil while pointing to the ears repeating, "I cant hear you. Let me write it down. I am Hard of Hearing/Deaf. Sorry. Sorry." While people behind you get irritated. I have thought about getting a neon shirt to wear at the store with the words, "I am Hard of Hearing, I can't hear you!"
In zoom meetings I can see peoples faces. It provides context I miss so much. But I have low-frequency hearing loss so the voices of men are blurry at best. Arizona State University has a fantastic disability resource center and they have started providing me with a captioner who attends classes with me and transcribes for me live. I don't always need her but it has been nice not having to message classmates through a class to ask what was missed.
This is a new world for many deaf/Deaf/HoH who are my age. We have always had ways to work around our disability. Now masks and technology are depriving us of coping skills we relied on.

Date (Dublin Core)

June 13, 2020

Creator (Dublin Core)

Sidney Herald

Tieheena Lemerond

Contributor (Dublin Core)

Dana Bell

Event Identifier (Dublin Core)

HST580

Partner (Dublin Core)

Arizona State University

Type (Dublin Core)

News Article

Link (Bibliographic Ontology)

sidneyherald.com

Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)

English Community & Community Organizations

English Conflict

English News coverage

English Social Issues

Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)

Deaf

deaf

HOH

ASL

deaf community

disability

challenge

hearing aids

Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)

Deaf

deaf

HoH

ASL

deaf community

disability

challenge

hearing aids

Collection (Dublin Core)

Deaf, deaf, and HOH Perspectives

Disability

Linked Data (Dublin Core)

HST 580 Professional Experience/Archives course

Date Submitted (Dublin Core)

06/25/2020

Date Modified (Dublin Core)

07/11/2020

11/21/2020

03/21/2021

04/17/2022

08/02/2022

10/10/2024

Date Created (Dublin Core)

06/13/2020

Item sets

Covid 19

Arizona State University

This item was submitted on June 26, 2020 by Dana Bell using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://covid-19archive.org/s/archive

Click here to view the collected data.

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