Check yourself before you, well, you know...

ASHA posted this link to Hearing Health Magazine, and it truly opened my eyes to some misconceptions that I had held.

17 Misconceptions about People with Hearing Loss
By: Janice Schacter

I usually feel certain that I am addressing people with communication disorders, cognitive impairments, or physical disabilities in a respectful and professional way. I see them as a person first, then as a "person with ____". When I worked in the schools and spent more time on language disorders and fluency disorders, one of my primary educational outreaches was for professionals and families not to assume that any child with a LLD, fluency disorder, or LD had a lower IQ. In the geriatric population, I try to educate staff so that they know that a person with aphasia still retains their intelligence, and that persons with dementia can still participate in daily life.

When I I started to read the article, I was thinking that I would be pleased with myself for avoiding any misconceptions concerning hearing loss. Wrong! I am glad that I did not fall under any of the "major" misconceptions (deaf people have lower IQs, people with hearing loss are unsuccessful, etc.), but here are some of the ideas I've been able to re-examine:

PEOPLE WITH HEARING LOSS TEND TO BE OLDER ADULTS.
I think I looked twice at this because I work in geriatrics, but this helped me put things back into perspective. I might add that another misconception people hold is that all older adults are hearing impaired hard of hearing. My skin crawls when I hear a nurse or CNA yelling into the ear of a person with dementia or aphasia, thinking that they must not hear well because they are slow to respond.

DEAF, HEARING IMPAIRED, HANDICAPPED OR DISABLED ONE IS AS GOOD AS THE OTHER.
I do believe I have used the term "hearing impaired". Look above-- I caught myself while typing this blog post! I thought it sounded, well, professional and described a patient's impairment, as we are required to do on our evaluations. I also use "reduced hearing acuity" and "hard of hearing", especially when the patient/ family describes hearing loss, but this has not been addressed by an audiologist or documented by an MD. I did some preliminary web research and found this on ASL University : DrVicars: Politicians used to think the word "Deaf" was not PC. Politicians preferred the term "hearing impaired," but the Deaf community loves the word "Deaf." You could say it is "CC" --culturally correct. I am doing more research on this because I am kind of passionate about these things, but for now my feeling that it's best not to use the term "hearing impaired".

I have another blog post in the works about acceptable terms and professional language, but let's wrap this one up for now. I believe it is so important to remain aware of the misconceptions that can creep in, as well as the changes in culture and attitudes. I like to refer to people as they prefer, and when in doubt...check yourself!