Masks are silencing us

or at least keeping us from communicating easily with one another.

There is a piece in this morning's paper from a former journalist. He still writes the occasional column for the paper.  Over the years he has written a great deal of good sense.

He is now getting rather hard of hearing, deaf if you wish. His column this morning was about the extra difficulties faced by those who have increased problems hearing what is being said because people are wearing masks.

I am acutely conscious of this. I am extremely fortunate that my own hearing is currently fine. At the same time I know many people who have problems brought about by hearing loss. 

I know people who have a mild hearing loss. For them it is a source of irritation. People don't speak up. People don't articulate clearly. Sometimes an accent will throw them. 

There are people with a moderate loss who depend more than they realise on reading people's lips as well. If they are in a well lit place and someone is facing them they are able to communicate easily enough, even well.

A more severe hearing loss will often have them thinking they should be thinking about getting their hearing tested. Yes, it often reaches that point before people do anything about it. Getting used to hearing aids at that point is still possible but it can be difficult.

There comes a point where people really do need those hearing aids but it is much harder to learn to tolerate them. It really isn't a matter of just putting them in and communicating normally. It requires work. Even with that work not everyone can tolerate them.

And there are the much more severely affected who, even with hearing aids, are not hearing what those of us with good hearing can hear. For them communicating is a much harder task even when people are not wearing masks. It's a daily struggle. 

Lastly there are people I know who have a profound hearing loss, who depend heavily on being able to see people's faces and ultimately on sign language.

Not so long ago I met a woman who is living here for a couple of years. I admire her courage. She is profoundly deaf. She relies on sign language. Her husband is a hearing man who comes from a family where he was the only hearing child of deaf parents. M... can communicate quite freely with him. She can communicate with almost nobody else. She would have a problem even with the deaf community here because sign language differs between us and Canada. It was only with extreme difficulty that I made myself understood in a small way. She is intensely lonely here and it would be far worse without the internet and an application which allows her to use a mobile phone with her husband and her family.  

We can email each other now but even then I have to be aware that the way she uses English is not the way I use English. Her syntax is sometimes awkward.  There are words I need to be aware she may not know even though she has a degree in mathematics. 

Her difficulties have added to my awareness of how much people with any hearing loss are missing out on. I am already aware that people are chatting less to each other in the supermarket, the shopping centre, the library and just out in the street. Too many older people tell me I am the only person they talked to today and say "But take that thing off so I can hear what you are saying".  The Covid19 virus is having an untold effect on their capacity to communicate. It has made me wonder what is happening to tiny babies who must remain in hospital and who are not getting the stimulation of seeing and hearing the voices of their parents. What effect is that having on their language development?

Hearing loss can be very, very isolating. If the rest of us feel isolated in the current circumstances how must people who are already isolated in so many ways feel?