James Tenner was called upon to formally introduce our guest speaker.

Linnaea Mallette is a professional speaker and author who has been severely hearing impaired since birth.  She is the recipient of the Oticon Focus on People Award given to twelve individuals nationwide who defy stereotypes about being hearing impaired.  Linnaea enjoyed a 33 year career at UCLA where she was featured in UCLA Today, UCLA Spotlight, and honored with a nomination for the Chancellor’s True Bruin award for her service to the UCLA research community as a training coordinator.  She was a District Governor for Toastmaster International in 2003-04 and received awards for her leadership successes.

If they are wearing hearing aids, they can hear.  Hearing ids help, but they do not restore one to perfect hearing.

If they can read lips, they can comprehend what we are saying.  Lip reading, in and of it, is not enough for complete communication.  It helps.

If I shout, they’ll her me.  Loud/Shouting is not necessary and doesn’t help.  Slightly louder, slower, and a bit more articulation does help.

She also gave us a few tips on how to interact with the hearing impaired:

Speak clearly, slowly, distinctly, but naturally, without shouting or exaggerating mouth movements.  According to her, shouting distorts the sound of speech and may make speech reading more difficult. 

Do not talk from another room.  Not being able to see each other when talking is a common reason people have difficulty understanding what is said.  Remember, most of a meaning is conveyed through body language.

Most hearing impaired people have greater difficulty understanding speech when there us background noise.  Try to minimize extraneous noise when talking.  Restaurants are a killer. 

 

 

Meeting ended at 1:10PM