I thought I would inflict on my long-suffering readers some little anecdote from my recent attendance of the Third International Hearing Loop Conference held by Hearing Link in Eastbourne.
On the Sunday evening while we were waiting for the start of the show by Richard Einhorn I had an interesting conversation with three delegates.
One was from Cornwall and the others were a man and wife from Southampton; both men had no hearing but were brilliant lip-readers. Anyone looking at us during our conversation would think we were all hearing.
We spoke about what was most excluding: sight or hearing limitations. My companions thought that having defective hearing was more socially isolating than a sight problem and I agreed with them. They had good sight.
My Cornish friend told me that until the smoking ban he never went to pubs because he felt excluded. I thought he meant that being choked by smoke was bad enough without a hearing problem. It wasn't that. I learned to my amazement that a smoky room prevents even competent lip-readers from reading
lips. You live and learn.
I heard the Southampton man's interesting story about how he lost his hearing well into adulthood and how his hearing dog has improved his life.
At the conference itself there was a contribution from Pete Halsey from Australia. He talked out the struggle to get induction loops there. Many airports don't have induction loops or, if they do, that they are not advertised. I asked a question from the floor: was he being diplomatic in not giving us a reason for this? I know that the Western Australian Deaf Association is opposed to induction loops for reasons of 'deaf culture'. I'll write about this another day.
Pete came back and said that he was well aware of the hostility to induction loops and indeed to people with only defective hearing. I think he should have told us that for the benefit of people who are
unfamiliar with this phenomenon.
Then Janice from Wisconsin chipped in and told us that the same situation existed in the USA. This is a
sad state of affairs. Surely we should not be shielded from the antagonisms that some profoundly deaf people have towards those that have 'residual' hearing. I suppose the reason for keeping quiet about it
is to not create or deepen divides among those who have hearing problems. Is this wise? What is your view?
