SayWhatClub Weblog

More on SayWhatClub: by Jan Christensen
SayWhatClub Weblog More than 36 million people in America alone have a hearing loss, with an estimated 278 million worldwide according to a World Health Organization (WHO) survey in 2005, ranging from moderate to profound. Hearing loss is the third most common health problem in America, behind only arthritis and heart disease. A small group of people [...]
Culture Fri, Jul 03 2009 · 11 hours ago

The hearing aid industry and audiologists
SayWhatClub Weblog I'm totally baffled and perturbed by the hearing aid industry and audiologists.  I've just about had it.  I recently interviewed two hearing aid companies:  Oticon and Sonova Holding HG.  You can read the interviews yourself at [link] the Sonova interview at: [link] In case you were not aware, Phonak and Unitron are under Sonova AG Holding.  [...]
Tech Tue, Jun 23 2009

Silent News– A New Trend
SayWhatClub Weblog Like many people I get my news on-line.   Unlike many people I don't hear very well.  Over the past few years there's been a trend toward offering breaking news in video format.  Unfortunately the videos aren't captioned.    Take today's news.  Yahoo offered a video simulation of the French Airbus that went down over the Atlantic [...]
Tech Sat, Jun 06 2009

Lets talk about hearing loss cluelessness
SayWhatClub Weblog I HATE when people just don't get it.  Hearing people that is.  I use to hate when people with hearing loss are in denial that they are losing their hearing and these are bright intelligent people, who rather suffer and pretend than look into wearing a hearing aid. I don't want to hate hearing people who don't understand [...]
Audism Tech Culture Sat, May 23 2009

Getting to know us is to love us
SayWhatClub Weblog It all started nearly 14 years ago.  I was one of New Zealand’s first cochlear Implantee’s back in 1993.  In fact there was very little information about Cochlear implants on the web back then.  As editor of New Zealand’s cochlear implant newsletter I was always looking for articles, and searching on the internet for them.   So [...]
Media Tech Culture Mon, May 11 2009

Hearing loss at age 45
SayWhatClub Weblog John Samanic said May 1, 2009 at 12:36 pm e Hello, My hearing loss began in late 2003 at the age of 45. My mother and my maternal grandfather both lost their hearing at about the same age. I am on my second set of hearing aids, which, thankfully, enables me to hear, but not so well. [...]
Tech Sun, May 10 2009

I’d rather be Hearing-impaired than Listening impaired
SayWhatClub Weblog This morning I woke up coughing, again. My head, back and chest hurt. My throat was raw and swollen. I have been sick for over a week. With these latest warnings of a near swine flu pandemic, a doctor seemed like a good idea. The receptionist was able to squeeze me in with someone I [...]
Tech Tue, Apr 28 2009

Is There a Hard of Hearing Culture? by Shanna Groves /...
SayWhatClub Weblog  In my soon-to-be-published novel Lip Reader, a church pastor goes out of his way to make sure his deaf congregants understand the music and sermon. He uses sign language while preaching. The music is interpreted through sign and a loud beating drum. Any deaf person visiting this church for the first time would likely feel [...]
Media Language Education Tech Culture Fri, Apr 17 2009

I AM dEAF
SayWhatClub Weblog I am finding that telling people, “I am deaf.”, nets so much more understanding and accommodation than any of the other descriptions (hard of hearing, hearing impaired, et al.) I have tried over the years. Before joining the SayWhatClub (SWC), I would have felt like a fraud using “deaf” to describe my severe/profound hearing loss [...]
Art and Storytelling Culture Sun, Mar 29 2009

Say What Club Convention
SayWhatClub Weblog Last summer I wrote extensively in my own blog about the two hearing loss conventions I went to.  One of those was the Say What Club Convention in Philadelphia.      Over the past several years, the SWC and their conventions have helped shape my self awareness and growth in dealing with hearing loss.  For our workshops, we [...]
Tech Culture Tue, Mar 10 2009

All In A Days Work
SayWhatClub Weblog 14/365 - the librarian in me, originally uploaded by ~shepdc~. Last week it happened again. At the beginning of the day, I went out to my car for something and accidentally locked myself out of the building. I do this about once a year. In fact, most of us do. There were two people inside– one, [...]
Audism Art and Storytelling Culture Mon, Feb 23 2009

Wonderful Silence - Wonderful Sounds by Virginia M.
SayWhatClub Weblog Wonderful as defined by Webster is a feeling aroused by something that is unexpected, marvelous and excellent; an event or thing which causes astonishment, admiration and wonder. A once popular band leader was well known for his utterance of the words “Wonderful, Wonderful.” My previous wonderful, wonderful vanished following the onset of my hearing loss [...]
Art and Storytelling Mon, Feb 16 2009

Deathness
SayWhatClub Weblog My mom passed away last week at the age of 89.  And though she was blind for many years, at the age of 89 she could hear you walking into a room, hear a conversation two rooms away and tell u where something fell and find it. Though we expect our parents to die, the reality [...]
Art and Storytelling Culture Thu, Feb 05 2009

Foreign Travel Often Easier Than Domestic
SayWhatClub Weblog I love to travel and caught that bug early at the age of fourteen. In 1974, my deaf grandmother, who did not wear hearing aids and did not know and use sign language, was planning a trip from Ohio to Texas to visit her oldest daughter, my aunt. Because of her failing health [...]
Art and Storytelling Tech Culture Thu, Jan 22 2009

Aimin’ To Misbehave
SayWhatClub Weblog Funny Faces 4, originally uploaded by jaaron. For Christmas my daughter gave me a tote bag with the words, “Well behaved women seldom make history.” I just happened to glance at it this afternoon and it got me thinking about some of the more noteworthy misbehaving women of our times. There have been several, [...]
Culture Tue, Jan 13 2009

Cochlear Implant Frustrations by Robyn Carter
SayWhatClub Weblog   It’s now official. I have just been diagnosed with depression for the first time in my life. Simply because of the frustration I’m having with lack of hearing, and lack of action in terms of ACC funding my new implant.  ACC is our Accident Compensation Corporation.  When you have an accident in New Zealand, ACC [...]
Art and Storytelling Tech Legal Tue, Jan 06 2009

TIRED OF SAYING WHAT?
SayWhatClub Weblog SWC is an acronym for the SayWhatClub.  I joined SWC back in 2001 when I was at my lowest point and feeling alienated from everything around me because of my hearing loss.  What I discovered was many people who appeared to have gone through what I did but were in a better place in their [...]
Language Education Tech Culture Fri, Dec 19 2008

When Family and Friends Just Don’t Get It
SayWhatClub Weblog I've spent the past couple weeks visiting out of state family and friends I don't often see.  Often when visiting people, they like to take you around to see the sites.  We did a lot of site-seeing this time as usual.  Whenever we go somewhere that offers a short, non-captioned film clip, or tape recorded presentation, a play, a [...]
Media Language Art and Storytelling Tech Sun, Dec 07 2008

A New Eye Doctor, A Sight for Sore Ears
SayWhatClub Weblog I went to the eye doctor last week in order to make one last effort at seeing better with contact lenses.  I have worn contact lenses to correct my vision since I was a young teenager, many moons ago, but as my mid forties passed before my eyes (pun intended) I began needing a little help seeing [...]
Tech Sun, Nov 23 2008

Coping with hearing loss
SayWhatClub Weblog Most recently on one of our lists, a lengthy discussion became somewhat of a battle as to the use of the word “COPING.”  Many people felt that coping was an important part of accepting our hearing loss.  Others believed that the word coping is a cop out that focuses on acceptance of being less of a person. Personally, [...]
Language Education Tech Culture Fri, Nov 07 2008

All That A Whisper Is
SayWhatClub Weblog When talking with a friend that I hadn't seen since childhood, I told him of my severe and profound hearing loss.  He asked if I had hearing aids, and when I answered that I had tried them extensively, but hadn't been able to benefit from being aided, he wondered at what I was missing?  “...music, [...]
Tech Wed, Oct 22 2008

Fast Talking Friends
SayWhatClub Weblog This is NOT a rant (well, maybe a little) - just some existential grumbling. Great news! My recently acquired BTE hearing aids have made a huge improvement in my speech recognition. But mind you, improvement is just that - my SR still isn't “normal”; I still need most speakers to face me, and though group conversations [...]
Language Tech Thu, Oct 09 2008

I’m Tired Of Feeling Excluded
SayWhatClub Weblog This is a rant, but if it educates just one person with perfect hearing I'll feel it was a success.  I'm tired of being excluded from office chat at work, from family chat at home and from general discussions everywhere else.    Friday morning, like every other morning I work, four of us were getting ready for [...]
Culture Sun, Sep 28 2008

I Hear You Laughing
SayWhatClub Weblog I began this post a while back and then put it aside, unsure as to whether I actually wanted to share it, but it seemed fitting to submit a post that includes a poem written just a few days after 9/11/2001, this same week seven years later. It is often true of those with a lessened [...]
Language Tech Tue, Sep 16 2008

On Being Hard-of-hearing/deaf and COOL!
SayWhatClub Weblog I don't know if some of you do this, but I have this knack for noticing other people's hearing aids.  Last week I met a young woman in her twenties with a beige in-the-ear aid.  Usually when I meet someone else wearing aids, I like to ask them about it.  Not that I'm nosey, but [...]
Tech Culture Wed, Sep 10 2008

On the Ground in a Hearing World - Getting What You Need
SayWhatClub Weblog For starters, this isn't just a post about getting accommodations for hearing loss; interpreters, CART, captioned TV/movies/phones, etc. Nor is it about picking your way through the mindless bureaucracy of getting assistance for the above (and hearing aids, etc). This post is mainly about strategies for coping with hearing loss in real time, with real [...]
Tech Legal Culture Sat, Sep 06 2008

Relearning Life
SayWhatClub Weblog Have you seen the becomeanex.org commercials that focus on relearning life without cigarettes?  The subjects of these commercials are going through their daily routines, but seem to be having trouble with even the most simple of tasks because of not physically having a cigarette in their hand.  I know you have seen them: A woman stumbles to her car, fumbling [...]
Media Art and Storytelling Culture Fri, Aug 29 2008

Captioning the world and speaking of politics….
SayWhatClub Weblog I don't know about your town but even here in NYC, I can't find enough theatres that have the most recent films with closed captioning.  Usually the most recent films will be shown in Manhattan.  Not exactly the most convenient place for me to get to.  I realize we're suppose to be grateful that there [...]
Tech Sat, Aug 23 2008

Make An Offer. . .But look at me first
SayWhatClub Weblog It's garage sale season and mine definitely needs to be cleared.  The other day,  my mother– garage sale queen that she is– took one look at the mountain of junk piled up where our cars should be, and declared it was time to have a sale.     On a closet cleaning frenzy since January, I've been hauling trunk loads of [...]
Art and Storytelling Thu, Aug 14 2008

MISSED/MISSED IN THE DARK by Michele
SayWhatClub Weblog When you rely on visual clues, such as lip/speech reading, body language, facial expression, and even sign language, in order to hear, it becomes a fact of life that communication during the darker hours will prove a challenge, and eventually an impossibility.  Take away adequate lighting in any situation and your lack of hearing slowly [...]
Language Culture Tue, Aug 05 2008

Please Face Me - And Make it a Double (part two)
SayWhatClub Weblog 7/28/2008 - Skirmish Lost - War Declared! The following transcript of a conversation I had today is not complete or perfect - it's from my best recollection upon arriving home in rather profound emotional turmoil and disappointment. I had to scribble it on paper as fast as I could, while it was fresh in my memory. [...]
Language Audism Tech Legal Fri, Aug 01 2008

Please Face Me - And Make it a Double (part one)
SayWhatClub Weblog Questions, questions. “What do you think made you start drinking?” Laundry List: - Pending divorce and expected result: bankruptcy - Looming debts rivaling the national budget - Loss of driving ability from sporadic bouts of vertigo (fear factor) - Tinnitus - Hearing loss “What - wait, you have hearing loss?” I read your lips and guess much of ...
Language Tech Legal Wed, Jul 30 2008

SOCIAL BLUFFING by Katie (guest writer)
SayWhatClub Weblog Becoming hard-of-hearing a few years ago really turned my world upside down.  Before the hearing loss, I was a real outgoing person in social settings.  Now, I find myself being left out (unintentionally) of some great conversations.  The reason I’m left out is because I cannot hear the conversation.  In a group of people, instead [...]
Language Culture Sun, Jul 27 2008

Deafhood– A Late-Deafened Viewpoint
SayWhatClub Weblog Vallhallian recently summarized Paddy Ladd's definition of Deafhood, interpreted as a process of accepting (actualizing) one's deafness.  Acceptance or self-actualization, according to Paddy Ladd, means participating fully in Deaf culture and apparently using ASL to communicate.  Anything short of that equals some kind of “arrested development,”...
Culture Tue, Jul 22 2008

The SWC Philadelphia 2008 Convention - July 9-12, 2008
SayWhatClub Weblog The SWC Philadelphia 2008 Convention July 9-12, 2008 My Perspective by Paul Schneider This was both my first SWC con, and my first time in Philly. The short description: AWESOME. I'd been told, of course, that attending an SWC convention is an amazingly wonderful experience - but there aren't any words that can capture what it really means. I met so [...]
Language Culture Tue, Jul 15 2008

The SayWhatClub Convention in Philadelphia
SayWhatClub Weblog I find it very interesting to attend conventions where everyone is either deaf or has a hearing loss.   I love meeting people with hearing loss.  There's alot of common ground.  We all have been there and done that stories to tell and boy some of these stories are awesome.  Its great seeing others in hearing [...]
Culture Sun, Jul 13 2008

I Need To See You Speak
SayWhatClub Weblog My very first memory of needing to 'see' someone speak in order to ‘hear' them comes from my early childhood, during Sunday School at the church where my mother sent us to worship.  I say “sent us”, as Mom rarely would go to church with my older sister and me.  Most Sunday mornings we were [...]
Art and Storytelling Culture Mon, Jul 07 2008

Aids, gadgets and technology, OH WOW!
SayWhatClub Weblog When u look at all the technology out there from the beginning of their creation to its current status, u'll note that most technology started out large and clutsy looking and eventually the product was reduced in size BUT improved in its functioning purposes .  For example, Look at computers, headphones, cellphones, xerox machines, fax machines, TTY's, [....
Tech Mon, Jun 30 2008

How To Read Your Audiogram
SayWhatClub Weblog Last month I completed a project on audiograms for a class. Realizing many people with hearing loss don't understand what all the symbols mean, I thought I'd condense it into a blog. I am not an audiologist, nor an “expert” on audiograms. I'm just a person with hearing loss, so if something [...]
Tech Thu, Jun 19 2008

How I Hear by Michele
SayWhatClub Weblog   What identity have I chosen as my own?  This question came after reading Kim's blog “On Developing A ‘deaf, not Deaf' Identity...” posted May 1, 2008.  For me, the answer to that question is still up in the air and a big part of the reason I joined the SayWhatClub is so that I can [...]
Culture Wed, Jun 11 2008

A Night at the Movies
SayWhatClub Weblog Last Saturday, I went to see “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” in rear-window captioning (RWC) with a friend. Though we got there early enough, the snaked around the corner by the time we found a parking space. When we finally made our way into the theater there were only a few scattered front [...]
Art and Storytelling Tech Culture Fri, Jun 06 2008

A Hearing Aid Diary
SayWhatClub Weblog Yesterday, I got my very first pair of hearing aids. It's too early to tell how well they'll ultimately work for me, but I've posted, and will continue to post, a diary of my experiences on my blog. You can read my first entry at: [link] I'll keep posting (sometimes daily, sometimes longer) as significant milestones are reached. Paul [...]
Tech Sat, May 31 2008

I Live In A Friendly Neighborhood. . .
SayWhatClub Weblog Lately I've been enjoying getting ouside now that it's spring.  I have been walking in my neighborhood and also on my lunch breaks while at work.  I love the way the air smells on a warm day after a good rain.    What's bothering me is the comments people make.  I know they've said something, but I [...]
Tech Tue, May 20 2008

On Developing A “deaf, not Deaf” Identity. . .
SayWhatClub Weblog Val's blog post touched a nerve in me.  She didn't consider herself “deaf” until she got her cochlear implant.  Only then did she begin to identify herself as a deaf person.  What changed?  I found myself nodding while reading her blog.  This question of “When are you considered deaf?” comes up among hard-of-hearing and late-deafe...
Culture Thu, May 01 2008

What is a loss?
SayWhatClub Weblog When is a loss a loss?  I recently lost a good friend to a massive heart attack.  I also recently heard some people debate whether it was more difficult to adjust to losing your hearing at birth or later on in life?  I guess, its all relative, yet I can't help but feel, we need to put [...]
Sat, Apr 12 2008

This Song’s For You
SayWhatClub Weblog Do you often hear music in your head since you lost your hearing?  Dr. Oliver Sachs explains the relationship between hearing and neurology in his latest book called, Musicophilia.  I was so interested in learning more about it that I bought a transcript of his interview with NPR radio.  If you want the full transcript, go to npr.org and [...]
Sat, Apr 05 2008

The Devil in the Details - The Power and Limits of...
SayWhatClub Weblog In all of life, particularly work, I've noticed that we humans have a tendency to over-simplify our challenges. That's why, if you've ever seen or read about how NASA manages their projects to the tiniest detail (and even that can't completely avert a catastrophe), no matter how much effort we put into getting things set [...]
Language Tech Sun, Mar 30 2008

Friends of my friend tinnitus
SayWhatClub Weblog My tinnitus is getting the best of me this week.  With the weather changing from cold to warm and from warm to freezing, my tinnitus gets louder and louder each day.  I live near the beach so I imagine that the roaring sounds in my head are the waves pounding against each other. I feel sluggish, [...]
Tue, Mar 25 2008

Why don’t more deaf and hard-of-hearing people learn ASL?
SayWhatClub Weblog Most the students in my ASL class hear well.  Realizing how small the Deaf population is, it seems another language might be a better choice for them.  Like Spanish.  Working with the public, I could use Spanish almost daily.  It's extremely rare when a Deaf patron shows up needing help, and in most cases writing will suffice.  It's not [...]
Language Education Culture Wed, Mar 19 2008

Drunken Sailor Syndrome - Living and Working with Vertigo
SayWhatClub Weblog Vertigo, commonly known as “the spins” is a condition where a person loses their sense of balance, so the world seems to spin around them, and “gravity” seems to misbehave. Most people have experienced very temporary vertigo by playing the childhood game of spin-till-you're-dizzy. Once you stop - that's the most common feeling of ve...
Sun, Mar 16 2008