Hearing Loss LIVE! Talks HoHs and Gifts. Remember, subscribe, like and share today.
Julia:Good Morning Welcome to Hearing Loss LIVE! We're entering the holiday season and hopefully you've made it through your Thanksgiving feast with friends and family because you came to our Conquering Your Next Family Gathering and had success. As we head into the holidays, we like to do what we call HoH gifts, where we kind of sit down and give you a rundown of our thoughts on how you can best gift your HoH. Last year, we did a lot of apps and I don't think there's a lot of new ones, Chelle, is there? There's we've got Ava--
Chelle:There's not really a lot of new apps, I would still highly suggest getting one of the transcript apps or a subscription to your loved one. But [yep] that's about all on
Julia:And we went through Roger Pen, there's all sorts of apps right now. different technologies. But we're going to tell you a gift. We had this thought, we call it our shower thoughts. Mine was more like I was at a basketball game last night captioning and I went, you know, there's a lot of things that don't cost any money that you can give to your hard of hearing loved one, friend, family, coworker, employee. And it's pretty simple stuff. We like to talk about being proactive. And I'd like to see hearing partners gift their HoHs this year, the gift of proactive. And I don't mean the stuff you put on your face to get really your acne. I am talking about, do you guys like to go to plays? Is there a live caption option that you can buy annual tickets for? If not, can you two work together to make that happen? Are your sports events captioned? Do you like to go to sports? Maybe you already have tickets for sports. Find out how to get captions. It could be as simple I think as sitting down together and figuring out what works, right? I had another thought that went through my head. A lot of automatic speech recognition is coming out and a lot of places and I'm talking about playhouses, live theater, those types of things, are finding some alternatives. I get it. If you have one of these programs where captions can automatically go to your phone. You can have captions at every play, right? If you have the script programmed. But is that really a good service? Do you like it? I mean, I know that we have some people we know that do like it. They like the ability to use their phone. I'm gonna tell you as a snob with-- who likes live theater, grew up on it. I do not want my partner to sit there with their phone light on looking at their screen. one, it just it shows up. It's annoying, right, too. How are they enjoying the play? If I have to look down at my phone this whole time to see the words instead of on a board right next to what's going on stage, At A Time To Kill a Mockingbird? How am I going to know why Atticus Finch is funny. On a line that should be serious. Why is everybody laughing? This is a very serious line. Well, it's because you saw his face. It was the action that happened with the line that makes it okay, that's my rant. I do feel live theater and I would hope to figure out how to have every performance captioned. I do like that idea. But I think cutting corners is not equal access. Does that make sense? I just don't. I don't think it is. What's your thoughts Chelle? That's my rant. Sorry guys.
Chelle:I like the idea of live theater being captioned, open
Julia:Yeah, and we've got really lucky because we do have captioned with the board upnext to the stage. I have read the script from my phone or from my chair and tried to read it like long time ago before you know, smartphones, with my kids in the play. I would be reading the script at the my flashlight. One a theater that that really tries to make sure there's an open of the things I would like to say is that somebody always complains around you about the light or being on your phone. So if you do like that option, and you know, people do, let the people around you know that you're watching, what you're caption of everything they're doing every, every week. And they email us they let us know what what's going to be on their doing, "I'm reading captions, just so you guys know." So GalaPro is nice, because you can go at any time. But I'm always going to pick the open captioned showings, I liked them much their list for the day. And I apologize. The dogs are really better. In fact, I treated myself to a subscription. They on one today. They're wearing me out man and it's early. You call it a subscription at Salt Lake Acting Company. And, I, we know, another part of being proactive is learning better got another HoH friend going.[laughter] So grab your, grab a hard of hearing friend and treat yourself to a open caption showing. If you're a loved one and you like that idea, contact the theater, find out how that can happen. We also have a, two other podcasts that you can watch that we did in the past one was with Vicki Turner who does live captioning for plays. And the other one was was Salt Lake Acting Company, who describes how they got captions and the funds they used. So, I think open open caption live theater is a great gift. I'm also gonna go with open caption movies. For any--just like Julia was talking there when you got GalaPro and you're on your phone or your iPad. Your your focus is here, here, here, here. So you get those caption devices at the movies, and your focus is here. Here. Here. I like the open caption showings, we have a theater here in town in West Valley City that does a lot of open captions, they have at least, I think it's two a day, to give people an option. So I will go there. So take, you can take a loved one to an open caption movie. Sometimes you have to bewhere because they will say "OC"open caption. But really, it's "CC." So you have to, which is the box and you're back to this again. And so make sure you investigate to make sure it is "OC" open caption. communication skills. How can you gift your HoH better communication skills that you guys can practice together? We have our three simple rules. We're going to go through it
Chelle:Yes. Give yourself if you're the HoH yourself, give Chelle? yourself the gift of a communication boundary. And the communication boundaries would be get my attention first, before you start speaking to me because we are all lipreading whether we know it or not. We use a little bit of lip reading. Probably use more than you think. The next the second rule would be to face me the whole time you're talking. And the third rule is to be within six feet. That's for line of sight for lipreading, but also because hearing aids have a hearing bubble. Hearing aids hear best within six feet. Anything after that and the ability starts to go away. So if you're within six feet, it's good for lipreading, and it's good for hearing aides. Those are my three big ones. And you know if you're a hearing partner, you can write those down, oh, actually, we've got something coming up for you. And I'll let Julia go through this.
Julia:So hearing partners can use this, these three simple rules, they make sense if you use it with everybody. But you know, this is a gift, you can give those you love, because it doesn't cost any money. So, you know, we know inflation is high, we know this year is crazy. This, this cost, absolutely no money. But it might save you 1000s. In the long run. If you want to copy as a gift to someone you love, whether your hard of hearing or your hearing partner, sign up for our email, we will send it to you. On December First, newsletter, email News, I'm-- blahh- let me try this again all. If you sign up for our email newsletter, which is free. On December first, we will be gifting a copy of these rules in a little fancy form. And you can put it as a gift for your holiday to to whoever you can gift it to your whole family. Get everybody involved. A gift I want people to stay away from. As a hearing partner, I think you might be thinking maybe the gift of hearing aids, cochlear implants are usually covered by insurance. But maybe you think you're being kind by saying oh, I'll help you with this. Mom, grandma, wife, husband, whatever. And then we can go back to the way we were before. Don't do it. If you're hearing loss partner, family member, say, I'd like to look into hearing aids, your answer should be, Let's go together. That's your gift. Right? The hearing partner can go with them to the audiologist. They can learn everything that they want to know about hearing aids, and why your communication is going to change. And if your audiologist doesn't answer that, you can decide if you want a new one. But you can come to us and you can learn better techniques. Any thoughts on that Chelle? Don't force hearing aides on somebody. They have to be willing to do it themselves. It's got to be time and they might have a mild hearing loss and maybe it is driving you crazy. But if you really push it what's gonna happen, you know, sure. And they'll go get those errands but then they're not going to wear them because in their hearts, they're not ready to yet. So don't waste your money on that kind of a gift right now. Just wait for them to be ready. Right. And I have two incidences personally for me. If I forced my husband right now to go get hearing aids. He's not he watches TV all day. He's not going to hear me any better unless we're working on it together. What he's missing, we know how to adapt to because we use communication rules in our house, the three communication rules. But the thing that's going to come between us is a$6,000 bill for hearing aids in a drawer because it's just going to make sounds louder for him. It's not going to help with understanding right now. He, his, his Bluetooth wireless headphone sets work just fine for him. And I will be mad at the $6,000 bill sitting in the drawer. The other incident is your older parents, grandparents. You have to be able to work with them. And you have to know hearing aids do not put you back to what you have heard before. Many times family members are really pissed off, because they spent $6,000 on these hearing aids and you still can't understand me. They can hear you I guarantee it. But it's just sound. If you don't use the three, free communication rules, the $6,000 is not going to help. So so stay away from a gift like that as Mike is my and all to that. And if you ready for that gift, be ready to get services to understand better. I one idea that is a costly gift, it's very costly. Join our Lipreading Concept class and or our Lip Shape class. That's $100. Costly? I don't think so. And you can give a class to your loved one, okay, for hearing loss so that they understand lip reading better. And Chelle, doesn't know this, and I'm the queen of you know cost. But if you would like to join your family member, we will have a special buy one and join free. So two of you can join any of the classes to gather for $50. That's eight weeks of class, what three bucks a week, for each of you? Join one, join both. We do- it's not mandatory, but we do suggest you do liberating concepts first. Because we have found after years of teaching and participating and telling you even if you know all of it, until you understand how it works with lipreading, the lip shapes and how they work will not always make as much sense. That's my long winded say, Do both right? Buy one, get one free. Just let us know that's what you want.
Chelle:That's a great gift for both the hearing partner and the hard of hearing person. Learn how to communicate better together. I've seen spouses join the classes in the past, and they have reaped huge benefits. They've had less communication breakdowns because of it. And I even remember one of the guys, we got to the storytelling part and I tell a story. And it's about 10 sentences long maybe and I had people pick out and pick and pull words as they can. This is an advanced kind of thing. But this woman she she was pulling words out all over the place. And I remember her husband looking at it with his mouth open. [laughter] Because he did not realize she was lip reading that match into her that proved how much they were lip reading and after that their communication really improved together. So that is quite the gift. And it is just $50 the class will have to have the spouse to turn to I think that's awesome.
Julia:Oh, we're doing good. Any other thoughts on what you can gift to your loved ones?
Chelle:I do that for you go to those live caption plays and the movie. Take your loved one to a quiet type restaurant and it's hard to find. You want restaurants that don't have a lot of reverberation. And by that I mean the restaurants with cement floors, high ceilings, just hard, hard walls no. There's no softness in these restaurants and I get it. It's easier to clean that way. But it is horrendous on hearing aids to sit into a senator no restaurant like that. So make the gift of going off time. Whenever I meet another hard of hearing friend of mine and we go to lunch together we will hit an off
time. Let's go in at like 10:30, 10, 10:30 for breakfast. Or I'll meet you at lunch at one. How about dinner at four? [laughter] because that also helps that's a wonderful gift to to hit it early. Avoid the noise and keep track of the restaurants that are not as noisy. Some are better. Some have the outdoor carpet on the ground. They have drapes. They have plants. All those, those three things right there will help soak up the reverberation and it's less confusion on the hearing aids what else. Some people even have acoustic sound panels on their walls and that helps too. So look for these things and and that will help a hearing aid user too.
Julia:Yeah, I need to look into acoustic sound padding on my walls. Any other thoughts? So even if you don't purchase an automatic speech recognition app, at least look into the free versions, I suggest you try them out. And then if you like one more than another, you know, and you want to move it up to a paid perscript, subscription, prescription subscription, do so there's many, the new iPhone will have FaceTime with automatic speak, speech recognition options. So look for that, if you're upgrading your iPhone this year, find out more about that.
CHelle:I have one more thing that I just remembered. Assistive listening devices[yeah] also a very great gift. And it's a gift for you, if you're hearing and they're listening to the TV super loud. You can get those TV streamers that they listened to it in their head. Now, that kind of cuts down on the communication between both of you during that. But what some people do is they take commercial breaks or pause it, and they talk to each other and then they start again. So look into a system of listening devices. Some of the other ones might be like a pocket talker that has a microphone extension that you can use in the car, which I need to do next time.[laughter] [yep] And they can clip the microphone right to their shirt, I just use a hair clip, clip right there. And that will improve hearing in the car because that's another hard area. If you want to find more assistive listening devices look at DIGLO.com.
Julia:Diglo. Good idea. Something too, and this is something everybody reminds us. And we're like, oh yeah, we should use this in the car and we don't, you can actually buy a microphone for your iPhone or your Google phone that hooks right into where your speaker you know, your earbuds would or whatever. And you, if you're if you're a passenger with hearing loss, you can clip just like with the pocket talker, you can clip it on the driver, or you know, pass it around between if you're sitting in the back, and then get the captions right to your phone on even notes. The note app that I kept is that what is called notes, I never use it. So I'm like, I don't ever know what that ones called. But if you have Otter, if you have Ava, any of those will actually transcribe right to your phone and then you can use your phone. If you're the passenger, you can get one of those little stands and the phone can be right there in front of you. And you can capture what you need to. I think that's our next video Chelle [laghter, yes] the next short video.
Chelle:I have also one more thing and that is maybe your hard of hearing loved one doesn't have that bad of a hearing loss and just needs assistive listening. All plays, theaters, movie theaters, live action theaters, event centers, conference rooms, a lot of them have assistive listening like to their FM or infrared. And one of my favorite gifts here recently has been my Wi Fi based assistive listening system in my livingroom where I have an app and I press play on my app and it goes right into my ears through neckloop for me hopefully I have Bluetooth every night soon. But that Wi Fi listening system allows me to hear the movie or the show wherever I go in the house. So I really liked that one. That's kind of pricey, but I like it. Just want to say one of the best ways you might be able
Julia:I think sometimes if you're one of those people who really enjoys--[timer noise] that's the timer. If you enjoy watching stuff at home, that that's, that won't be worth your money right? Because if you spend a lot of time with then you have the big screen TV and whatever that actually is a really I think a great gift to look into. A loop or a Bluetooth Wi Fi system. Because I it we have a podcast with Listen Tech, and I'm pretty sure in that I said you know, you can just even do it to headphones. So if you're if you don't have hearing aids yet, but you use your bluetooth headphones all the time that that system will work for it. And you could even do two different rooms, which was kind of cool. I thought so. Because sometimes we don't even like the same movie. [laughter] So that takes care of the sound. into rooms. Any other thoughts before we close out Chelle? Thank you for being with us this past year. As you can see, we're going to do ongoing crowdfunding. There's many different ways that you can help us out. Buy us a coffee, you can actually go to Buy Me a Coffee and either buy us a coffee, or look at some of the things we're raising money for, like our live captions at all our live events, or any equipment we need to purchase next year. Watch for new rollout on our podcast station on our YouTube page. Hopefully a refreshed website soonish. Again, you can look for that. Patreon, ifyou want monthly content is available. Chelle? to help us is if you liked this podcast, please share it. Exactly. Yeah, share our podcast, share our blogs. Come to our events. We have many free events. We'd love to have you there. And that is Talk about it Tuesday, which will be December 6. So come to Talk About It Tuesday, December 6th, 6 to 7pm Mountain Time and if nothing else, we hope you have a great holiday season this December and talk to you later.