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Hearing Loss: Come introduce yourself and connect with others
Welcome to the Hearing Loss group on Mayo Clinic Connect.
This is a welcoming, safe place where you can meet people living with hearing loss, and friends and family supporters. Whether you were born deaf or hard of hearing, experienced hearing loss after birth or with aging, it helps to connect with others. Together we can learn from each other, support one another and share stories about living with hearing loss, coping with challenges and celebrating milestones.
Let’s chat. Why not start by introducing yourself? What is your hearing loss experience? Got a question, tip or story to share?
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I look forward to hearing more about what you learn Tony. I participated in that Zoom training that used the captions. They were great. Not sure why Zoom is holding off on including captions in their format while others like Google Meet are already providing them. We experimented with GM prior to purchasing the Zoom pro program for our HLAA chapter. We found the visuals were inferior to Zoom. For example, you cannot see yourself, except for a tiny postage stamp sized visual. What happened was that people don't realize they are not being seen as they should be. People slump in their chair and you only see the top of their head, etc. Regardless, Zoom should get on the bandwagon. FYI, we have had our online meetings captioned by a CART provider. It is tricky to get those captions in the right place as they tend to cover other things on the screen. It gets more complicated with 'share screen' when a power point is being used. I have found that by experimenting with some of the controls; gallery view, vs speaker view, for example, I can move things around. It's really important to encourage Zoom neophytes to experiment with those controls. It's the only way to learn how they work.
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2 Reactions@julieo4 I will update this group after the webinar. I hope the questions get answered. Like you, I experimented with Google Meet for our state association before deciding on Zoom. At that time, Google only displayed a maximum of 4 participants, I believe. I think they've since updated so that 16 can be seen. I have a large computer screen and with Zoom, I can see up to 25 people at once. When we tested Google Meet for the automatic captions, the captions were fine for the folks that have good speech. We pulled in a board member that does not have good speech and the captions failed miserably. Automatic captions are not reliable for those voices. We, too, pay for captions when we have our board meetings and have also decided that we need paid captions for Executive Committee meetings because the member with a challenging voice is our treasurer. I don't know if automatic captions will ever be good enough for challenging voices and heavy accents, but you never know. Who would have thought we would be where we are today with automatic captions? I'm guessing that the challenging voices is why Zoom is holding off on their captions. They don't want to settle for "good enough".
Tony in Michigan
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2 ReactionsHi -- I'm Lucky1038 in Santa Monica CA. I am really O.L.D. I think my hearing is OK but I want to get it tested. I've seen my regular doctor for about 20 years. She has never brought up the subject of hearing. So thanks to you here on the internet I'm motivated to get it checked out. Also my good friend has had hearing loss.. he's 90. he's been wearing some kind of a hearing aid. But he's not one to research things. I introduced him to computers when all one saw when turning it on was an amber screen -- you had to type something to load an application. Later on I dragged him into getting a new PC.. and forced him to use email. He loves it. The problem now is that his hearing is worse. I want to find out about tools to make it so that he can use his computer including his email easier.
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1 ReactionHi Lucky1038. Welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect/Hearing Loss Group. First of all, OLD is a state of mind, right? Reality is, that 50% of people over age 65 will test positive for hearing loss, and the percentages get higher with every year that passes. It's extremely common, and it's even more common to deny it or even not realize it's happening to you because it can be so gradual you don't notice the change. Definitely, do get a hearing test. It will serve as a baseline for future testing. Medical doctors do not get much training on hearing loss, yet, they should all ask their patients if they have trouble hearing when they reach a certain age. Do get tested. I you are told a hearing aid would help you, come back and ask questions on this site before buying one (or two).
Your 90 year old friend sounds like someone who is open to learning. E-mail is a wonderful way for people with hearing loss to connect with others because you don't have to hear to use it. If he is using video conferencing or trying to hear YouTube or other things online that require listening, that's a whole different issue. If his hearing aids have telecoils, a simply device called a neckloop can connect him to computer sound quite well. The telecoils are the key, and they are not present in all hearing aids. Sometimes a simply headset plugged into a computer without the hearing aids can be a big help. The only way to know if it works is to try it. Hopefully you can encourage him to try a headset. Let us know if that helps.
Thanks Tony. Keep us posted on what you learn. The challenging voice issue is something many people don't understand. It happens as a result of poor hearing over many years. It's often referred to as 'deaf speech'. That is not an insult to deaf people, but it's a reality. When you lose hearing, or never had good hearing from birth or early childhood, you are not aware of certain sounds. Speech therapy can help with children, but it takes a huge effort. When we lose hearing, it's generally in the high frequencies, generally the consonant sounds (all sounds other than vowels). Consonants basically define words. Vowels don't, but they give speech power. Here's the difference: _u_ _ _ e (Vowels) vs p_rpl_ (consonants) Here's another one: _o_o_ _y_ _e. (y can be a vowel.) That's a 4 syllable word. vroom vroom is a hint. Now if I give you the vowels you can probably figure it out. m_t_r c_cl_ Reality is, when you don't hear sounds like s, th, f, n, m, c, etc. you tend to omit them from speech and your speech gets distorted.There are lots more of those soft sounds, but you get the idea. Deaf speech also tends to be nasal, which makes it even harder to understand. And, for those of us with adult onset hearing loss it's a huge barrier. We have to circumvent that barrier as best we can if we associate with other people with hearing loss. A good CART provider can usually translate it pretty well. Crossing my fingers that Zoom will get the message about captioning. CART is wonderful, but it's expensive to provide.
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1 ReactionWe had a previous discussion about Zoom captions. I just watched the "Ask Me Anything with Eric Yuan" presentation. The focus was to give an update on the security features and Zoom home - which integrates Zoom into Amazon Alexa and Google Assistance products. There was a strong focus on Zoom with the education sector because many classes are virtual. I, and others, asked the question about when the auto captions will be available. The answer was that it will be released in chunks, starting with those in education. My guess is that if you have a paid Zoom account, you'll get it before the free accounts. I didn't get an answer on why release to the whole community instead of the education sector but that was not answered. My guess is that the captions require bandwidth and may cause headaches for those that do not use captions??? Today's meeting used the automatic captions and they were pretty good since several of the speakers had challenging voices, including the CEO.
Tony in Michigan
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3 ReactionsGood report Tony. Thank you. The only part I understood was the part about their "challenging voices". I understood that.
@tonyinmi, I'll be watching closely to see when auto closed captioning appears in my subscription to Zoom. Thanks for the update.
Thanks Tony. We are all waiting for this and hope it happens soon. As said in a previous post...when we don't ask for what we need no one knows or thinks we need it, especially if it requires work or expense. Keep on advocating.
Thanks...Will look into it