“The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.” -Maureen Dowd
Hearing loss does not come with a manual. People with a hearing loss are constantly balancing being assertive with asking too much. Besides an audiologist, you may be the only person the student sees that has anything to do with disability-related issues. Do your best to educate the individual on what is available. The webpage I’ve pulled together (the address is on the next screen) provides links to many sources of information and connections to other people living with hearing loss. Pass this on to the student. This information can be vital in helping to create the knowledge in a person that there is a whole community of people out there who are dealing with the same problem.
Finally, for people who are not familiar with it and who have never used it before, all this ALD stuff may seem like space-age technology or something off the Jetsons. The more familiar people are with it, the more they see others using it, the more they integrate and understand the technology and the vast difference it can make, not only in their educational outcomes but in terms of how the feel at the end of the day and how connected they feel to their family and friends, the less resistent they will be to using it. How do you encourage people to integrate the technology into their lives? One way is by interacting with others who use it on a daily basis and who embrace it as being as much a part of their lives as an automobile or cooking with gas. You guessed it…I’m hawking internet surfing and e-mail discussion groups again!
