Deaf Awareness Week 2022
This Deaf Awareness Week (2-8 May), can you help Box UK raise awareness to help break down the barriers that people who are deaf or have a level of deafness face everyday? 11 million people in the UK are deaf or hard of hearing. There are 151,000 BSL users in the UK. Deaf people are more likely to: have poor mental health – up to 50%, compared to 25% for the general population.
Concentration fatigue is a familiar term in the Deaf community. Some people who are D/deaf or Hard of Hearing experience this as a side effect of their hearing loss. Trying to concentrate, watching signing, lipreading and listening to speech and sound can be exhausting, especially over long periods of time. How about you have a go at lip reading and see how good you are at it, click the link below…
Exhausting, right!? Now you can empathise somewhat with how tiring it is to keep up with day to day conversations. I have listed some top tips that you can use to make communicating with Deaf people as smooth and clear as possible.
7 top tips for communicating with deaf people.
- Always face a deaf person. Make eye contact and keep it while you are talking.
- Check noise and lighting. Turn off or move away from background noise.
- Keep your distance.
- Speak clearly and steadily.
- Take turns.
- Repeat and re-phrase if necessary.
- Write it down.
Lastly, please remember that not all people who are Deaf communicate the same way so do not be afraid of asking what their preferred method of communication is.
