AboutCordell Vail Expertise I would be very happy to try to answer any questions that you may have about things you can do as a hearing impaired person to find a good job or better your education. I have been working with the deaf since 1996. One of the greatest needs seems to be finding help with getting a better education and employment. To try to fill that need, started a FREE deaf job service web page at www.vcaa.com/deafnews/jobs. You can post your résumé there for free. I am also collecting deaf job information, educational opportunities and vocational financial assistance for the hearing impaired from every state and posting it on that web page. Because the ideal employment for some hearing impaired people would be to work at home, I am in the process of writing a book about that and I also post that information on the web page when ever I find it. There is no cost to use the information on the web page and I will be happy to try to answer your questions here as well.
Experience I have been helping the deaf and hearing impaired find work and better education since 1996
Publications www.vcaa.com/deafnews/jobs
Education/Credentials 2 years graduate work at the University Of Utah in Interpersonal Communications
Expert: Cordell Vail Date: 5/9/2006 Subject: Hard of Hearing
Question My 84 year old father is hard of hearing.
He tried a hearing aid in the past and wasn't able to hear better. He told me that his doctor said he had nerve deafness and that nothing could be done for that. Is it true that no hearing aid can help someone with nerve deafness? He is not totally deaf. He needs to be in a room with no noise and someone speaking moderately loud to understand. What options does he have.
Answer I am not an expert on hearing loss. But I am hard of hearing myself. I lost most of my hearing in Vietnam. I can tell you that having hearing aids did not help me. It just made the things that I could already hear louder and amplified the little noises like paper rattling or pans banging to the point of being irritating. It is also true that it does not normally help to talk louder. It is the back ground noise that makes it hard to hear what is being said. For me high frequency is what I can not hear. So I can not hear women with a quiet voice, door bells, phones ringing, clock ticking. Things like that. If I turn the base all the way up on the TV or stereo and the terrible all the way down it helps me hear better.
I have also heard that hearing is made possible by little hair like protrusions inside your ear and once those are damaged they do not heal. Nerve damage is normally not treatable. Ringing in the ears is cause from those little hairs being broken off. I have a very loud ringing in my ears all the time. I have just gotten used to it.
Most of my family have learned American Sign Language so we can talk with our hands too. I do a lot of lip reading too. That helps. I told my kids the only reason they learned Sign Language is so I would be able to tell them where I hid the money when I get old.
The best thing you can do to help your dad is not get irritated when he asks you to repeat things. Most of us who are hard of hearing become very introverted and withdrawn because we seldom hear what is going on around us in a group and we are too embarrassed to keep asking what was said. So we just withdraw and avoid being with other people when possible, especially in groups.
It helps a lot if you try to talk to him when there is no back ground noise and have friends who understand what he is going through and are willing to talk to him anyway.
