Working With People that are Losing Their Hearing There are many professional settings in which you may find yourself working with elderly clients. When you are working with a lot of elderly clients, you should understand the importance of being sensitive to hearing loss and reacting well to your clients hearing loss.
Speak Clearly First, you should understand that volume does not necessarily mean clarity. There are some people that only start to talk louder when they realize that they are working with someone that is struggling to hear and understand what they are saying in their conversations. When you are speaking to someone that is struggling with hearing loss, you want to make sure that you are as clear as you can be. This means that you will want to talk to them face to face to ensure they are able to use your body language and your lips to interpret what you are saying. When an individual cannot interpret what you are saying based on the volume of your language, you want to make sure that they have the other tools to use as well. Making sure that they have the other tools will ensure that you are able to be as clear and communicate clearly. As you talk, you should be sure that your mouth is not obstructed and that you are annunciating as well as you can. This way, you can make the process of hearing and interpreting what you are saying much easier for someone that cannot depend solely on his or her ears to hear.
Be Patient Second, you should be sure that you take your time while you are talking. There are a lot of people that rush through their conversations on a professional level because they have a lot of things to do and they want to get their clients in and out efficiently. Although this may be a great way to save your time and save your clients time, when you are dealing with a client that has hearing loss you will need to slow it down. Make sure that you speak in short and simple sentences and you are not rushing what you are saying.
Captioned Telephones Third, you should be familiar with how a captioned telephone works. Your client may be using a captioned telephone and you want to make sure that you are speaking in a manner that allows this service to translate what you are saying for your client.
Trying to avoid speaking on the phone may be your best option. Talking face to face as often as possible is a great way to ensure that nothing is going to be lost in translation and that everything that you need to convey is going to be heard and understood properly. Working with clients that have hearing loss may require a little extra effort on your part, but it is important that you do what you can to make sure your client understands. With a little extra patience and time, you can tap into a target market that you may not have been able to communicate with before.