Deaf Awareness Week 2023

Deaf Awareness Week 2023

Misunderstood, unheard, invisible and isolated. Who deserves to feel this way?

What would you say if I told you that people who have severe hearing impairments or are deaf, regularly experience social isolation and loneliness? 

What’s even more heart-wrenching is that more than half of the UK’s population of adults do not feel confident communicating with deaf people. 

A lack or inability to hear does not prevent a person from knowing that someone doesn’t feel confident or comfortable talking to you. 

Two problems have been identified here, the first being that many who have severe hearing impairments or are deaf feel misunderstood and unheard and the second is that many people do not know how to communicate with people who are deaf successfully. 

So what can be done… 

Well, the theme of this year’s Deaf Awareness Week is “Access To Communication” and the aims are as follows:

Access to communication is a fundamental human right for all regardless of their hearing ability! 

How can we all get involved and embrace the theme of this year’s Deaf Awareness Week? 

With our day-to-day interactions…

• • Don’t assume that every deaf person will communicate the same way. This is ignorance and lack of effort. Every individual has their own preferred method of communication this could include:
    • Lip-reading  
    • Listening and speaking, possibly with the help of a hearing aid or cochlear implant  
    • British Sign Language  
    • Fingerspelling   
    • Makato 
• • Speak clearly and naturally (do not shout or scream) and remember to stay still so they can hear your voice or follow your lips.
• • Do not talk to someone from across the room and make sure there isn’t a lot of background noise. Move to a quieter place if it is noisy.
• • Use facial expressions, it might be helpful to use gestures to support your communication
• • If you are struggling to communicate what you’re trying to say then don’t be afraid to use a text app or pen and paper to write down what you want to say.
• • When a person who is deaf is trying to understand a conversation and asks for assistance with this, do not be dismissive and say “Never mind” or “I’ll tell you later” (which you don’t attend to do). This makes a person feel excluded.

Useful Links:

British Sign Language Clips on NHS inform

Relay UK – This helps people with hearing and speech difficulties communicate with NHS 24 phone services 

RNID – Communicating with staff and customers who are deaf or have hearing loss

UK Council of Deafness: https://ukcod.org/