we cannot hear! yay!

Hello fellow redditors.

As many of you remember we once had a stickied post for all research and surveys and project ideas. It got the job done but in practice, it was just a glorified honeypot for crap we don't ever want to have to look at. There are quite a few people who don't mind participating in the occasional survey especially when the researcher will compensate the people who take the surveys. However the stikied post is a pain to wade through and it's a case of out-of-sight. out-of-mind. This hurts both those who want to do take surveys adn the legit people that have meritable research.

So, at least for now, All surveys, research, and anything that would have gone in the stickied thread must now have moderator approval. If you can't politely send a mod message and follow the rules, we don't give a crap about your survey.

Not sure if your potential post has the muster to get approved on r/deaf? here are some guidlines:

• Are you in High School or lower? Sorry, but r/deaf isn't a good place for your survey. If your teacher told you to ask strangers on the Internet, please let them know that's not appropriate. (a better idea would be to bring the wiki to class, it's chocked full of useful info. If you have a single specific question after reading the whole thing, we probably won't mind answering it. )

• Do you need to interview some people in the Deaf community for an ASL class or something similar? Sorry, r/deaf is NOT the place for that.

• Does your school or organization plan to financially compensate participants? DING! we have a winner. We've had a college in Canada that's been here a couple of times over the years and they are welcome back for more deaf-related research any time.

• Are you part of the d/Deaf/HOH community, and prepared to explain to the mod team in plan language what you intend to do? You're generally welcome here.

• If your idea has anything to do with an app, or sign language translation, or a product to help us poor deaf people, we almost certainly do not want it on r/deaf. Too often these kinds of things are well meaning but miss the mark by a thousand miles.

This bullet list is not all-inclusive, and the mod team reserves the right to deny a research post request without a verbose explanation. Attempts to get around the auto-moderator may result in a ban without warning.

Thanks!

Effective immediately, r/deaf will not allow a post or link to articles about gene therapy cures. Similar posts about non-genetic cures and treatment articles may be deleted at moderator discretion without further notice.

If you have a hard time understanding why we're making this impromptu rule, please read this excellent opinion piece about the recent increase in these "news" stories.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/13/deafness-cure-medical-trial-hearing-loss?CMP=share_btn_url

I know that it can be difficult to immigrate to some countries while having a disability (such as Australia or to a lesser extent Canada), though having an European citizenship may mean that it's less of a barrier moving to different EU countries. I also hold US citizenship.

I've lived in both the US and an European country. The latter has offered me significantly more support in terms of social safety net and benefits, whereas the US has been a bit abysmal in that regard - but the US has offered me a lot more opportunities and educational aid, as well as general accessibility, than my country of origin ever did.

I know that no country has it all, but I was wondering if any countries I haven't lived in yet offer better disability support than these two (and might therefore be worthy of future consideration for moving to) - in terms of healthcare (I wear cochlear implants), accessibility, rehab resources, and financial support/disability aid/social safety net, general benefits - and anything else (also considering, of course, the general quality of life).

The interpreter asked me if her shirt color was ok and I wasn’t sure why she was asking or why it mattered. Her shirt was dark green.

Also how early do I need to request an interpreter for something like an appointment or training? When do I have to pay versus when can it be provided for free? How do interpreters charge their clients? Of o want to go to an event do they charge by the hour? Thanks!

Edit: I’m asking from the USA.

I am Deaf and enjoy cosplay and conventions. Why, oh why are cons so inaccessible. Like no thought is ever given to ASL and other accessibility for Deaf people. Are there any cosplay cons in USA that are Deaf friendly or are designed for Deaf people.

What alarm clock should I get and where can I get it from? Also I heard there something about deaf phone for deaf people can yall teach me about it?

I have a CI and a hearing aid. Now my CI never stays on. Like ever, it’s on a size four magnet and falls off at the slightest touch. Here’s where the struggle bus comes in. I was brushing my hair out this morning, and I didn’t take off my CI. My brush went over my CI it fell off aaaaannndd it landed right in the toilet. THE TOILET. I felt like I was in one of those cheesy high school movies where the hair straightener falls into the toilet 😭😭

But I ran to my bedroom dried it off as fast as I could and took off all the pieces and chucked it into my dryer on full blast.

Hopefully when I get home it works 🥲

Has this ever happened to anybody??? I need to know.

Hey fellows, I’m Max 21 and deaf/hoh. Over the last few weeks I got really fed up with questionable choices of Subtitles styles. Especially Netflix on IOS with really arts white small subtitles without background makes Shows like Superstore or Documentaries not available to see on the go. I also have more and more Problems with Disney + subtitles. Idk if they are auto generated or printed out the original screen texts and the actors decided to speak their own. So I’m trying to put all that in a list and make a public result available with some help of friends from a university that’s based on accessibility and green solutions. As of right now the list is not really long and mainly about streaming and public news platforms based or available in Germany. I would like to change that. So please put your problems in the comments and rant out a bit!

What sup with Jesus ASL ? I know it ASL but I feel that we can do better than just having just religion. For example I like somedeafguy he funny and it something we can enjoy more than just Jesus if you want know where find somedeafguy go to tik to or youtube.

Not just language wise, but culturally. I truly want to be Deaf. What should I not do along the way? Please be gentle, I mean no harm, and am truly deaf after a seizure last February. I'm not fucking around.

My current one is 10 years old and is tripped by so many high-pitched noises. I also have to unplug it to turn it off.

I’d prefer one that just listens for the noise and vibrates the bed. Nothing that requires hooking up to the actual smoke alarm.

Thanks!!

Husband and I are both deaf, we use the Bellman sound system to alert us at night to the cries of our almost-8 week old baby. We also use my iPhone’s phone recognition. Both systems are very sensitive and have worked really well! However, I woke up to a feeling, was surprised to see the time, (it was WAY longer than usual that I hadn’t been alerted to her waking up for a feed) checked on baby in her bassinet, and:

1. She had inched her way out of her swaddle and was partially face down…I’m not sure if she was crying, I couldn’t see her face in the dark. I could feel her crying though in my arms after I quickly picked her up. I’m so shaken, idk if she was able to breathe or how long she was like that for!!

   1. I checked my phone for any alerts of “baby crying”, and nothing. My sound system pager (that usually lights up/vibrates at the slightest high-pitched sound) also didn’t even go off when she started crying in my arms.

So I’m both terrified by the fact that she was potentially unable to breathe, and the fact that I have no idea if/how long my baby girl was in distress, and pissed that neither sound systems seemed to work.

Any other deaf parents have moments like this? We already had a really traumatizing fall in the darkness a few weeks ago, where I couldn’t hear or see her crying and have no idea how long she was for.

I feel like the worst parent 💔

I am looking for tips and recommendations on what to do before buying a hearing aid. I am aware that the hearing aid industry can sometimes prioritize profit over patient care, so I want to be well-prepared to make the best choice.

Please share insights about technology types, characteristics, costs x benefits of products, strategies to negotiate prices, anything will be helpful. Thank you!

I don't want to bother you with this but I spend a lot of time thinking about this and thought maybe someone out there wouldn't mind giving out advice. I want to know how to be a good ally to my Deaf colleague. I've asked him directly what would be helpful but I don't want him to have to do all of the work of making our office accessible so I spend a lot of time thinking about how to improve our workplace culture to be more inclusive, especially since I sign and I work very closely with him. If you need more context or want to know specific situations that come up a lot let me know. Thank you so much. I'm grateful for any input.

Throwaway account because he follows my other account.

I (hearing) am not sure what to do. I (at the time was 26f) slept with a deaf friend of mine (at the time he was 32m) and we had been friends for awhile first. We mostly communicated over notepad and texting because I have learning disabilities and despite my best efforts I only know basic sign. I thought it was understood that it was a one time (I was very very drunk) thing but he has continued to get more and more attached, even to the point of making violently angry posts on his Facebook that I (without explicitly naming me) will not date him. He seems to be very angry at me and is mean about it now. It has been two years now since we slept together and he has only become more mad and angry. I am one of his few friends so I would feel bad about just dropping him but it is starting to become concerning the things he is posting. I tried to have a mutual (37f at the time) friend who is fluent in ASL mediate a conversation a year ago about the situation in case things were just being lost in translation and I don’t want to hurt him but at this point I don’t know if it is an issue of miscommunication or if he actually just is a violent person with red flags I should avoid. He has made what seems to me like threats in his most recent posts over the last couple days and I’m just not sure what to do.

I care about him and don’t want to leave him with no friends but also I need to protect myself. I feel like I am stuck in a hard place right now and unsure how to proceed.

I know a lot can be lost in translation because verbal English and ASL are entirely different languages with their own nuances and sentence structure.

TL;DR I guess is would I be the bad guy for cutting off a deaf friend I slept with years ago since he has now grown uncomfortably attached to me.

ETA: as far as I know I am the only person he has made to feel uncomfortable like this

Good morning everyone!

I am a student at UCLA trying to make our main campus gym more accessible for those of the DeafBlind community. If you are willing and able, I would love to get your feedback on the solutions we have proposed thus far. Attached you will find a flyer for our project and alternate text will be provided in this post.

Title: UCLA Wooden Gym: Improving Accessibility

Box One: Interior Design (A woman with a guide dog and a white cane rests at the lower left edge of the box corner)

Proposal: Place the machines in a format that allows easy access and use for tactile users. Allow proper spacing with machines placed against the walls.

Box Two: Gym Equipment (A woman on an exercise bike leans in a crouched position on the right hand side of the text box)

Proposal: Attach informational pages to the machines in braille that explain how to use the machines. Place warnings and protective coverings in locations where one can possibly injure their hands.

Box Three: Textured Floors and Soundproofing (A woman with a white cane rests at the center of two columns of text. Box three is at the very bottom of the flyer page.)

Proposal: Use textured rugs to create a path from the entrance to the accessible room. Then change the pattern of the rug to signify entering the Circuit Room. Install soundproofing within the room for sensory sensitive guests. Place signage to notify non-disabled people of this little to noise free zone.

Box Four: Use of Braille and Vibrating Timers (A bubble appears in the center of the box with a person using a braille reader.)

Proposal: Place braille stickers or permanent signage on machines and doorways. Place vibrating timers on the machines to track workouts.

Box Five: Entrance (No graphics of people to display.)

Place a tactile map of the room to allow a preview of the room layout.

[Image]

Hi, I’m 33 and profoundly deaf, I never ever accepted being deaf person, always struggled all my life accepting being deaf, my mum wrapped me up to much protected me to much from outside world and went to hearing schools which were massively struggle since a child and growing up, I met my partner when I was 19 and I learned so much from him still to this day! Like money wise, public, getting the bus, meaning of things everything, just daily basic things but only thing I accept is the person who I am, but not the deafness, understand?? I cannot seem to fit in the hearing world or deaf world, I just don’t know why, maybe hearing world I understand why, but deaf world, nope! I can’t understand why, I did meet up with deaf community I just couldn’t fit in, I’ve tried again, they ignore me, don’t want to know me, I keep trying few times, I don’t know why they haven’t given me a reason, or it’s cause I given up but I don’t hear from them anymore ? But they all bsl users now. I don’t sign, there’s times they had to translate to me cause they all use bsl, maybe that’s why, but I thought deaf community is very supportive with each other? I am super shy, not very confident, very quiet. Maybe I need to meet different people?

I’m currently learning level 2 bsl, nearing exams in July and I just can’t grasp it, I pulled out last time cause I just couldn’t grasp it, so though try again, I’m nervous wreck knowing I’m wasting my time, going fail exam, I have no one to sign to daily to grasp and remembering signs, or meet up with anyone when I go to signing I get nervous and mess up! 😬 I don’t know what to do, I don’t want to fail my Exams thank u

 I am a Speech Language Pathology graduate student currently studying therapy practices for children with hearing loss to improve their language skills (signed or spoken) in the US. I feel that my curriculum is sorely lacking in cultural considerations so I have tried to take the initiative to do my own research as best that I can. But, as with all things, the more I learn the more I realize how much I don’t know. 
 I still have not had an opportunity to hear directly from people in the deaf community so if you have a moment I would love to learn all I can from you. I am also planning to visit a local organization who organize events and services for our local deaf community. 
 My question for yall is, what has been your experience with medical professionals? What has been good? What bad experiences have you had? What advice would you give to medical professionals if you could? 
 Additionally I’m curious about the cultural attitudes towards different forms of language therapy. I want to be able to be an SLP who can serve the deaf/hard-of-hearing community in a way that is respectful of them and their identity and their needs. Anything you are willing to share with me to broaden my perspective and base of cultural knowledge is deeply appreciated. 

Had to turn to Reddit for answers because I don't know how y'all deafies survive in the hearing world. I know not all of us are the same since we come from different backgrounds.

I'm gonna try to make this brief. I work two jobs. One job for 8 years as a package handler. Another job for almost two years as a warehouse associate. At this one job I always felt like almost everybody at work hates me but I try to tell myself that's just ADHDs doing. (Got late diagnosed in last October. I'm 36) Mostly because I "work too fast" by overwhelming the sort hub. As a result not a lot of people want to work with me lol. There were times they tried shouting for me to slow down or stop. I can't really hear good even with my cochlear implant. This is completely bullshit. Because of this I had to keep an eye on the conveyor belt yet this causes some people to think I'm "staring at them" eyeroll....so I couldn't always look in the back so I just focus on unloading packages on belt. When going on break I always minded my own business inside tractor trailers. There used to be a few deaf guys at my work but not all of them could hold a conversation. Im married but no kids and find it difficult to relate whenever they talk about their children.

Another job I have....for almost two years. I had to stand at this workstation for 5 hours a day. 15 min break. I don't really like this at all because it was so boring. Definitely not ADHD friendly. Standing still. That was so torturing. I don't always have strong interpersonal skills because I grew up in a school where I was the only deaf kid. During the school recess I always stood alone by fence. I had some non deaf friends yes. But didn't develop some social skills I needed later in adulthood. Childhood memories of being lonely followed me all the way to my late 30s. I turned out to be very socially awkward because of how I grew up. I'm deaf mute. Married but no kids. I sign but not black belt in ASL. Hell, I don't come from deaf families lol. If you can't sympathize, don't comment. Don't look down. If you do, screw you! If you understood, and could relate to, bless you thousands of times.

Tried looking into deaf literature and see if they have something that would ease this anxiety I have in the hearing world. I do hiking, rock climbing, walking by rivers as a way of relieving stress. I wish I wouldn't be reminded that I'm different from everyone else, feeling like a foreigner. I wanted to escape to a world where everybody does sign but that's just fantasy thinking and that would be like segregation. I don't want to discriminate hearing people or even deaf people who cannot sign good. Yet. I hate feeling this way.

Hi everyone. Hearing mom of a kid who’s HoH here. I asked a lot of questions a year or so ago about school for the Deaf because we were having lots of trouble with our local mainstream school. We ended up enrolling our then 10 year-old son (diagnosed at 7, and we tried to get accommodations in our neighborhood school for a while) in the local Deaf school, which required us to beg, plead, invoke the law and basically insist that they give him a chance, and they only agreed to it for a semester because he had limited ASL and some comorbidities and behavioral challenges. A sped teacher in his neighborhood school wrote a very inflammatory behavioral assessment, and the Deaf school was worried about whether they could support him there.

How did it go, you ask? Amazing, actually. The first semester was the hardest — he really didn’t know much ASL, and he sometimes got into minor conflicts because of it. But he played all the sports, did all the events, and has really embraced the whole thing. His grades are great, he’s on track academically, and even better is we’ve been able to remove lots of accommodations from his IEP because the environment is much less stressful and much more supportive of his communication needs. He routinely begs to move into the dorms so he can spend more time there.

So, if you’re a parent in a similar situation, I’d strongly suggest you consider a School for the Deaf.

I hope this doesn't apply as self-pitying, but I have lived a lifetime just kind of ignoring that I likely have never been able to hear well. I struggled in school all my life due to have ADHD and likely also having hearing loss in retrospect. I failed school hearing tests but I was always asked if I could hear the person administering the test talking to me and if I said yes (I always said yes), I was shrugged off and sent back to class.

I was always told that the deaf community can be particularly unwelcoming, so I kind of just decided to not look into it for the better part of my life.

Recently, I decided to take some hearing tests online and every single test indicated that I am severely hearing impaired. I think it's time that I accept that I am HOH? Is that the right terminology? I can't help but feel a bit depressed about it.

I can mostly understand conversations, but not at bars or loud outdoor areas. I can't watch any movies without subtitles. I can still enjoy audio dramas with noise cancelling headphones so I don't always feel hearing impaired.

I frequently feel really hurt and left out when friends make offhand jokes or comments and I miss it constantly because I can't hear. They don't mind repeating it to me, but I often feel like making my friends repeat what they've said loses its "funniness" and I don't press them to keep on repeating if I can't hear what they've said. I'm also easily frightened mostly because I don't often hear people or pets coming up to me.

Is this legally a disability? Is this something I should disclose to future employers?

I guess knowing now doesn't exactly make a huge difference. I have already navigated my entire life so far with an impaired ability to hear. I really like being able to hear and weirdly although nothing has changed after acknowledging, I feel like I'm grieving.

If anybody has experience regarding living life as an hearing impaired person, I would appreciate if you can share your experiences. I know there's a whole world and community of people that live life just fine without hearing. It would help to find some validation that I'll be okay.

Hello, can you recommend any book/short story with representation of Deaf characters?

I am looking for something short, scary, and with one of the important characters being Deaf and using sign language. But I’ll take any recommendation as long as it’s a horror book that has a Deaf character.

Any suggestions on how to come up with name signs for my kids? (I’m deaf but don’t know how to assign name signs)

I’m in search of books, links etc, to learn about deaf community. If anyone has any suggestions I’d appreciate it.