Showing posts with label hard of hearing student. Show all posts

Off the top of my head I can think of two medical exams where I actually need to use my brain: an eye-exam, and a hearing-test. But it's the hearing-test that I have honestly felt stupid, and even humiliated at times.

I got my hearing-aids when I was in pre-school. I vaguely remember my dad having to wiggle them into my ears with one hand, and with the other arm holding me still as I squirmed away. I also remember that they were attached with a red string, the kind of string that holds a librarian's glasses together - one loop around the left hearing-aid, and the other loop around the right hearing-aid. In my pre-school mind the only thing that string was good for was to easily yank them out the second I got home.
This means that I have had plenty of audiology tests in my life. Back when I was a kid there were fun blocks and toys to play with, and a Sesame Street puppet that danced in a window box as I turned my head to whichever speaker I thought was playing the tune. I don't remember when things got incredibly less fun, and incredibly more 'test-like' but it happened before I finished elementary school.

Soon there was one spot that I would have to stay very still in. There were all kinds of strange headphones placed at various angles around my head, and on my ears, and right behind my ears - and the only movement allowed was to raise my hand every time I heard a beep.
Wait did I really just hear that beep? Or did I just remember that tone from the last beep from a few seconds ago? OMG brain, please focus dammit!

Oh god not the annoying static at that annoying-as-all-hell pitch! And she wants me to listen for that tiny beep... with all this other noise in the other ear? Well that's just obnoxious!

Wait I didn't actually hear that low beep, but I definitely felt it vibrate from the headphones. Does that count? Should I raise my hand? Dammit, what the hell - I'll just raise my hand anyway. 

What will I have for lunch after I get out of this hell hole? Forget lunch, I need a straight up beer after this nonsense!

During this whole time it's just me in a sound-proof room with the audiologist in the other room, looking at me through a window as she fiddles with her dials and jots down on a piece of paper all the made up noises I am hearing. And in my paranoia, or lack of confidence in my hearing abilities, I am desperately searching her face for clues of whether or not I'm getting anything right!

But the beeps and noises are nothing. The toughest part of this for me is always the "say these words back to me.." part of the test.
Her: Say hot dog
Me: hot dog
Her: Say sailboat
Me: uhh..mail moat?
Idiot! That's not even a word. What the hell is a mail moat?
Her: Say cupcake
Me: uhh.. cake.. fuuhhc..wait. Oh, cupcake!
Context clues helps! 
Her: Say mat
Me: crap. Is it mat or bat? Wait did we already use either one of those words? Ugh just go with "bat."
Her: Say letter
Me: feather
Her: Say weather
Me: weather
Her: Say sweet
Me: uhh.. fleet?

It also drives me nuts because the audiologist hides her mouth during this part behind a piece of paper. My natural instinct is to say "I have a hearing-loss and lipread most of the time, can you move your hand?" But I can't. I can't because she is hiding her mouth on purpose and my gut says: you are a cruel cruel human being. But of course I know that's not really who she is... she just happens to get to be intentionally annoying as a professional career... and I try really hard to think to myself: this is for your own good. All while I am repeating:
"..pleather?"
"uhh.. waffle?"
"ban Kate?" "..no wait, wait, I meant pancake! Did I get it??" But she has already moved on without responding.
Her: Say bleacher
Me: creature

Oy vey. I consider having "passed" a hearing-test when at the end of it I am not taken away to the loony bin because I am "hearing things."

Do students with a hearing-loss still use F.M. systems in classes? Or is there an app for that now these days? I am only half-kidding with that remark!

For those who may not be familiar with it, this is essentially how an F.M. system works: There is a transmitter and a receiver. On the receiving end is the student who usually wears a little add-on piece that attaches to the hearing-aid. On the transmitter end is a device that can can resemble a microphone and is either clipped onto the teacher, or is placed near the area where people are talking.
Some people may be wondering, well if you have a hearing-aid isn't that enough? Ultimately what is considered to be 'enough' will depend on the student's hearing-loss. For me it wasn't enough because in a classroom setting there are chairs squeaking against tile floors, there are lights humming, radiators blasting, pencil sharpeners churning, lockers slamming, and of course -- other students making their own thousands of noises! (It's really shocking how much noise one 7 year old can make if you give her a pencil, never mind a classroom of 21 others!) A hearing-aid will pick-up on all of these sounds and it goes into the student's ear; so by the time the teacher speaks, his or her voice may be all but drowned out or muffled at best.

With the added use of an F.M. system the voice(s) that need to be most 'focused' on is then better able to be funneled directly to the student via the transmitter. But of course when you give a child any piece of technology or adaptive equipment... in the eyes of a child/student its uses can transmit much much more than just the voice of a teacher, or that group discussion. Here are a few things to NOT do from my own wonderful life experience:

1. Don't leave it in the bathroom. 
In middle school was the time when I first experienced classroom changes. For each subject we had we would have to go to a different classroom, and during that 4 or 5 min transition girls would gab in the bathroom together. I was, of course, barely responsible enough to remember my own homework so giving me the responsibility of taking the microphone from one teacher to the next was a lot. Often I would absentmindedly leave the microphone on the sink in the girls bathroom and then go off to Social Studies class, then suddenly be terribly embarrassed when I heard a toilet *swoosh, flush*

2. Don't ask your teacher about that private conversation.
A common happening with the F.M. system is that it forgets to be turned off. I can't even begin to tell you how many private conversations I accidentally was 'looped into' because my teacher forgot to turn it off, or take off the microphone. Does she really think Stephen peed his pants? Does he really think that Megan's mother is the most annoying ever? Does the lunch lady really despise watching the classroom? Was the bus driver really smoking on the playground? Avoid repeating these stories if you want to avoid awkward moments... for everyone involved.

3. Don't say "said" when the teacher says "Repeat what I said." 
Unless of course you have a teacher who has any sense of humor! I may have mentioned this before but paying-attention is not my greatest strength.. which of course doesn't really help the whole hard-of-hearing-student bit. Often teachers weren't sure if I had just not heard what they were saying, or maybe the F.M. system was malfunctioning, or maybe ...I was just spacing out again and chatting with my friends. I even had lots of crafty teachers who had caught on to my ability to lipread, so to test the F.M. system functioning they would turn away and whisper quietly into the mic so only I could hear, "Sandy if you hear this and if you're paying attention you can have a gumdrop from my desk.." Then they would turn back to the class and call on me "Sandy, repeat what I just said." And 7 times out of 10 I was probably not paying attention and would guiltily say... "...said?"