April 21, 2014 by Chelle

HLAA Event/Meeting on May 3 from 9-1:30

May 3 HLAA Meeting is two weeks earlier than normal. To celebrate May’s Better Speech and Hearing Month, we teamed up with Loop Utah and the Sanderson Center to hold a two day event called, “Don’t Be Left Out of the Loop!” On May 3, 2014 the National HLAA office is sending us their Loop Advocate, Dr. Juliette Sterkens to talk about the necessity of hearing loops, the advantages and how to advocate for them ourselves. Here’s our schedule:

8:30-9:00 light breakfast

9:00-11:00 Dr. Juliette Sterkens

11:00-11:15 break

11:15-12:00 the Loop Challenge

12:00-1:00 Lunch for all attendees

1:00-1:30 Home Loops presentation

Feeling Loopy? Come join us. Send your RSVP to chellegeorge@utah.gov. We hope to see you there.

March 20, 2014 by Chelle

March Book Club

Have you ever wanted to attend a book club but didn’t because as hard of hearing you were afraid you’d miss too much? Here’s your chance to try one…. We will be gathering on March 29th from 2-4 at the Sanderson Center in classroom B/C. The book of the month is The Horse Whisperer by Nicolas Evans. We will have the loop on and Julia will be doing the CART. Feel free to come by even if you haven’t read the book as our discussions on the book can be lively at times.

For those of you planning to attend, here’s a list of questions:

If you saw the movie and then read the book, what did you think about the ending?

Which ending do you prefer and why?

Did the book engage you?

The story was told by three people; Annie, Grace and Tom. Could the book have been told by one person? Which person do you think could have told the story better?

Who was your favorite character and why?

How do you feel about Annie? And her drive, her career, her choices?

What did you think about Diane (Tom’s sister in law)?

Annie and Grace’s relationship was tense through most of the book, was it a typical mother/daughter relationship to you?

Does Tom’s gift with horses seem too good to be true?

A man wrote this romance, do you think he did a good job in this genre?

There are four themes in the book: worldly success vs the home life, rustic simplicity vs big city angst, the redeeming power of love and the mystic of animals. Which part did you like best?

What one word describes the book for you?

We are taking turns choosing a book each month. If you have a good one to share in April, let us know at the meeting this month. Thanks and hope to see you there!

March 20, 2014 by Chelle

Our Last Meeting March 8th

We had a great meeting on Saturday the 8th of March. We talked about self-help books and then second half was about hearing loss books in particular. Helen reviewed “A Quiet World” by David Meyers.

Kathy reviewed “Odyssey of Hearing Loss: Tales of Triumph” by Michael Harvey.

I reviewed “Missing Words: The Family Handbook on Adult Hearing Loss” by Kay Thomsett and Eve Nickerson.

Perhaps the best part was us sharing why our chosen book meant so much to us. Those are best part of our HLAA meetings.

Helen provided us with a long list of books, fiction & nonfiction, that center around hearing loss and deafness. Robin gave us a list of books about hearing loss available at the Sanderson Center for us to check out. Yes, the Sanderson Center has a great library of books for us to check out when we want. Take a look someday.

Utah-CAN members filled us in about captioned plays coming to Utah. Keep your eye on their website for place and time.

April 5th The Blueman Group

April 25th Warhorse

May 31st Memphis

July 26th Wicked

Loop Utah updated all their recent activities which included attending the Utah Speech-Language and Hearing Association’s conference in Park City a few weeks ago. There was a counter loop at the booth through which they played a sound clip showing people the difference between hearing in a church with hearing aids only and then hearing with a provided loop. A lot of people ‘got it.’ Dr. Anne Lobdell gave a presentation for the audiologists about hearing loops, the ADA requirements and then a panel of 5 hearing aid users talked about their experiences with the loop which was well received.

Near the end of our meeting we decided not to meet on our regular Saturday in May which would have been the 17th. National HLAA is sending their Loop advocate, Juliette Sterkens to us on May 3rd to talk about looping Utah and how we can work on having more hearing-friendly places in Salt Lake to attend. Loop Utah is heading this up in the looped room, classroom B/C. A light lunch will be served and there will be a raffle as a fundraiser. Stay tuned for more information.

Thanks to those who attended the meeting. It was great seeing everyone!

February 28, 2014 by Chelle

March 8th is our Next Meeting

Our next meeting is March 8^th instead of the typical third Saturday of the month. (I could not get the looped room scheduled on our regular day.) Our topic is Hearing Loss Books. In the first half of the meeting Susan Chilton will tell us what to look for in self-help books and how to use them. There will be a break with refreshments then we will continue the meeting with some of us reviewing the hearing loss books we’ve read. If you have a favorite hearing loss book, bring it along for discussion. We will also be passing out a list of books related to hearing loss. We hope to see you there.

February 20, 2014 by Chelle

CART Makes Legislature Accessible

By Chelle George

A few weeks the Sanderson Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing put out a call for people to come to the state capitol for a show of support for their services and programs. They mentioned they had interpreters available. I’m learning sign language slowly but I’m not near good enough to understand through an interpreter so I asked if they had CART available. There was a day of scrambling but they pulled it together for me.

The session started at 2:00 and the center’s CART person, Julia, also works at the University wouldn’t be out of her class until 2:30. That’s okay because I like Julia plus knowing in advance helps and what I was mostly there for was a show of support. They decided remote CART would be the fastest solution instead of her traveling to the Capitol eating up more time. The Sanderson Center went into gear contacting the legislature to find out about live streaming and wi-fi. They came up with a link for Julia to listen to the session so she could do the CART notes miles away at the University. Then she sent us a link for us to go online and read her notes.

At the legislature, we had seats reserved up front for a good view of the two interpreters and the senators and house reps. Someone came in to make sure we were properly hooked up to the wi-fi. The director of the center had her iPad and I had my iPhone. The session started.

I spent the first half hour observing the proceedings and watching the interpreters to see how much I might catch from them. Like my hearing, I only catch a few words here and there. The senators and house reps were behind big desks and computer monitors so only the tops of their heads were in view. Lip reading wasn’t an option. The guest speakers sat facing toward the desks so again, no lip reading possible from the person who had the floor either. I didn’t understand much so I read my email and the handouts instead. So The first half hour didn’t have much to do with our center luckily.

I kept checking my phone to see if CART had started. Julia and were in touch via Facebook chat and around 2:30 she asked if there wasn’t anything coming though. No. (A moment of panic from me and I’m sure her too.) There was a small glitch but she fixed it and had it going by 2:45.

Now I had captions to the proceedings and it totally thrilled me. In fact, I was a CART hog. I held the iPad (sitting between two other hard of hearing people) watching the captions and had it set up on my phone as well because it was there and available. I watched both screens and kept them going. I can’t tell you how much CART makes me feel included and involved.

Other people’s hearing ability amazes me. Julia knows when someone different starts talking and she drops a line with a header saying ‘speaker.’ (If she knows people, she adds their name but here she’s typing blind.) I suppose that’s normal for everyone but it blows me away. She’s listening to this from the University and knows when it’s someone different talking. Me? I can’t tell and I’m in the room where they are talking. Often I’d look up from the captions to find out who was speaking and it took several seconds for me to locate whose mouth was moving or head bobbing if they were looking down.

A man had the floor and gave an acronym his agency had adopted. A rep spoke up saying, “Thank you for yet another acronym.” His comment was delayed in the captions (there’s always a few seconds delay) so I didn’t understand the laughter right away but when it showed up on my captions, I smiled too. That sure beats the many, many times in my life where I sat quietly not understanding while others laughed around me. This time I got it and I don’t care if I’m a few seconds behind everyone else. Another round of laughter came up later about extra funds not being spent because it’s like extra money in your checking account you can’t spend…because it’s your wife’s money. It’s incredibly nice to included via captions.

At the end of the session on Friday, one of the house speakers thanked us for coming and thanked the two sign language interpreters for being there. There I sat with invisible accommodation and Julia’s hard work unnoticed except by me and two others who were very grateful for her service. This was my first legislature experience and it was only possible with CART. Without it, it would be nothing to me, sitting in a room with a bunch of people. With it, I felt a part of it and it enriched the whole experience. Instead of an outside observer, I was a witness.

A great big thanks to Julia for making it possible for me to understand. And I’m so happy to be alive with today’s technology.

January 11, 2014 by Chelle

Meeting Saturday January 18th

“Hearing loops will do for hearing instruments what WIFI does for laptops.” Dr. David Meyers

Our next meeting is Saturday, January 18, 2014 from 9am-11am. Our topic will be hearing loops and it will be held in the newly looped room in the Sanderson Center, classroom B/C. Your hearing aid is specifically programmed with for your hearing loss and switching to T-coil (the telephone switch) will deliver clear sound right to your hearing aids. If you’ve never experienced the technology, now is your chance to discover the difference.

My personal hearing loop experience is it gives me almost normal hearing again in group situations. Gone is the background noise and distance which interferes so much with in my typical hearing aid program. Normally I rely on CART (real time captioning) to get me through meetings but with the loop, CART is backup. I can look down to write and still hear the words being said. In the Sanderson Center set up, we have microphones set up on the tables which means I also hear all the comments as well. That does not happen without the loop for me.

Our meeting will cover ADA compliance which changed in 2010, talk about hearing loop standards and the difference between a loop and other assistive listening devices. Come find out why this technology is so awesome and why we need to build awareness of the loop in Utah. Find out about the little steps we each can take to get venues looped so we can get out there and start being social again.

December 23, 2013 by Chelle

Local HLAA Members Advocate

Local HLAA member Michael Shelton helped advocate for captions at sporting events at University of Utah. Here’s a letter he wrote to officials expressing his gratitude for making the event accessible to the hard of hearing…

Last Saturday I went to the Utah vs BYU basketball game at the Huntsman Center. I had two of my sons with me visiting from out-of-State and I proudly pointed out to them the captioning on both sides of the arena. I have to honestly say, I never realized how much I missed not hearing the announcements! It was so awesome being able to look up at the caption after there was some call or a comment made regarding the game. I consider myself pretty basketball savy and yet being able to read the announcements added so much more to my understanding and enjoyment of the game.

As to the captioning, what I liked was that it is visible for all (hearing or non-hearing alike) and, therefore, not requiring any effort or time checking out an auxiliary device. What I assume and hope in the future is that the captioning will become a part of the score board, positioned in the center of the arena, so we don’t have not to look away from the action to view the captioning.

The addition of the captioning is truly a great day for the deaf and hard of hearing! Please convey our heart felt appreciation to all those who have cared and worked so hard to make this possible.

Sincerely,

Michael Shelton

Utah-CAN

You too can make a difference in your community in regards to accessibility. For more information visit: http://www.utah-can.org

December 21, 2013 by Chelle

Brad Ingrao on Hearing Loss and the Holidays

National HLAA held another webinar last Wednesday night featuring Brad Ingrao. This is the bio posted on the website: “Brad is an audiologist, Tweeter, freelance technical illustrator, writer, lecturer and technology geek. He has been a long time friend of HLAA and has logged many hundreds of hours on professional and consumer listservs related to hearing loss over the last 15 years.

Dr. Ingrao is a consultant for the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Hearing Enhancement at Gallaudet University. This grant funded program supports Dr. Ingrao’s regular column in Hearing Loss Magazine.”

His topic was focused on how to improve the holidays gathering with hearing loss.

People with hearing loss, Brad said, are shortchanged when it comes to the holidays. We often travel for holidays which leaves everyone tired, hearing loss or not. When we get there, we too want to catch up with all the people we don’t normally get to see, cramming in conversations over a short period of time. With the background noise, people talking over one another and music, we tire out faster perhaps becoming agitated. Plus, being out of our environment means we lose control. We can’t control schedules, music/TV settings, rooms/acoustics or arrange for people to talk one at a time. It’s a downward spiral from there.

Many people still hide their hearing loss, afraid of being ‘outed’ as hard of hearing. How do we do we cope? We can either come out as hard of hearing or we can continue to bluff. We can become the constant talker so we don’t have to listen to others. Brad says the payoff is 100 times greater to say, “I need this to hear.” They are our family and they want us to hear them and they will, hopefully, help us. So how can we improve the situation?

Be honest – Accept your hearing loss and avoid bluffing. Find a way to be at peace with your hearing loss. Disclose your hearing loss and know what helps you hear better.
Educate – Educate yourself and your loved ones about your type of hearing loss.
Be Prepared – Get a hearing aid tune up before you go. Have a professional cleaning done. Get a ‘speech-in-noise test done. Set your directional microphones in your hearing aids. Have lots of batteries with you and insert fresh ones just before that important event so you’re not stuck in changing batteries in the middle of it. Use a humidifier.
Take Control – Make an itinerary. Plan ahead. Arrive early. Identify a rest spot. Pick your best listening spot. Be proactive.
Conserve Energy – Rest. Take hearing breaks. Cut your losses and move on when needed because sometimes it’s just too difficult.
Give Feedback – Acknowledge the effort of others. Suggest ways to make things better next time. Offer support to others who have hearing loss too.

Next, Brad went over three typical holiday scenes. First he pulled up a picture of a holiday dinner table seating 8 people. One end featured huge windows and he suggested staying away from those because of the reverberation. Also stay away from the ends of the table. Pick seats in the middle of the table that way you can catch what’s being said on either side. The reality is you won’t hear it all but in this position you have a better chance to hear more.

Next he pulled up a cocktail party scene. To talk to someone in this kind of event, get away from the main crowd and find a corner. Try to find something sound absorbing such as curtains, a rug and/or big puffy chairs.

At a place of worship, go early and sit upfront or call ahead and ask to reserve a seat upfront. Ask if they have ALDs or take your own. He briefly covered ALDs and which ones he liked before closing for a question and answer session.

Merry Christmas everyone and I hope these tips help you with your holidays.

HLAA holds monthly webinars. The webinars are captioned, show the person presenting and their power point presentations as well. They are free. For a schedule of topics and information on how to sign in, go here: http://hearingloss.org/content/webinars

December 16, 2013 by Chelle

A Sense of Humor Always Helps

Gotta love Maxine.

Hearing Loss Association of America

HLAA; Salt Lake Chapter