Understanding Hearing Loss
"I Can Hear you, but I Can’t Understand You"

Watch this 20-minute Ted Talk by HLAA Hearing Loop Advocate, Juliette Sterkens
Sound Clarity and Understanding Speech - Hearing is much more than the audibility (loudness) of sound. Sound clarity and intelligibility, or understanding speech and recognizing words, are just as important.​
  • Critical information is lost at high frequencies.  Today’s treatments for hearing loss – amplifying devices such as hearing aids – are limited in their ability to improve the clarity and intelligibility of sound, as they cannot replace the tuning and filtering of lost hair cells. This often translates into difficulties understanding speech and following conversations – often in noisy backgrounds.​
  • Additionally, most acquired SNHL begins in the high frequencies (2,000 Hz to 8,000 Hz). Add all this together, and millions of people with hearing loss continue to struggle to understand speech, even when using assistive devices.
Speaking louder does not mean I will understand speech.  For instance - I do not know French, so, speaking louder in French doesn't help me understand French.  
  • High frequency hearing loss is associated with problems understanding speech, because a lot of speech sounds – especially “s,” “f” and “th” – are high frequency, soft sounds. When you can’t hear these consonants, it can be very difficult to recognize words.  
Hearing Loss in the Media - Is Hearing Loss Accurately Represented in Mainstream Media?
 - For most of us who developed hearing loss later in life, our preference is to live in the hearing world. 
 Of the 48 million Americans who have trouble hearing, only 2 million identify as Deaf and use sign language (ASL).   So, why is it that ASL is most often portrayed on the large and small screen?
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Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see our living-with-hearing-loss experience -- displayed and explained to the world?  ​
Terminology vs Culture - "Hard of Hearing" or "Deaf"