Karen Western

    Last Tuesday I had the opportunity to visit Karen Western Elementary School and speak to all of the students about hearing loss. It was an interesting speaking engagement because Karen Western is the school that houses the deaf and hard of hearing program in the Ralston Public School District. Rather than giving my normal spiel about hearing loss and how to prevent it, I was able to talk to students about what their hearing impaired peers go through and how they can more respectfully communicate with them.
    It was also interesting because I spoke with kindergarten, first, and second grades during the first presentation, fifth and sixth during the second, and third and fourth during the last. All of the classes were extremely respectful and had some good questions to ask that really got me thinking about my platform. It reminded me about how much we need to educate people about hearing loss because there are misconceptions about it at every age.
    For instance, the main thing we talked about today is communicating with people who have hearing loss. The visual cues become so much more important for a person with hearing loss. They rely heavily on the direct flow of the verbal communication as well as the visual input the speaker provides - lips, body, expression, even sign language sometimes.
    It is also important to be aware of your volume and diction when speaking to people with hearing loss. Hearing loss does not simply make sounds quieter, it also makes it sound more jumbled. It becomes important to speak each word clearly and loudly enough, but it won't do you any good to shout, because it will still come out jumbled. Here is an interesting video that demonstrates what hearing loss is like: http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=215539&title=Hearing_Loss_Simulation&vpkey=14141
    I was also able to talk to several of the adults at the school (who work with those who have hearing loss regularly). We discussed the importance of spreading the word about hearing loss, especially in the state of Nebraska. We have plenty of resources available in the Eastern part of the state (with large cities such as Omaha and Lincoln), but it becomes a lot more difficult to have those resources in Western Nebraska where there are more small towns that might have 1 or 2 people with hearing impairment. Having the ability to travel across the state and address this issue would be essential in improving the hearing health of our great state!