Keys to Success for the Speaker
Repeat questions from the audience
Rephrase instead of repeat
Don’t stand in front of windows or bright lights
Face your audience when speaking
Avoid talking while the class is retrieving materials
Notes:
Many tips for the speaker apply even if you are not using an ALD. Again, repeat questions from the audience. This will help with speech reading. If the person is having trouble understanding something you said, try rephrasing it instead of repeating it. Remember, some speech sounds are higher frequency than others, and some words are easier to speech read than others. Just using a different word is often enough. For example, for the child with a high frequency loss, saying ‘It’s time to go to bed!’ is more easily understood than ‘It’s time to go to sleep!’ She will be able to hear ‘bed’ but not ‘sleep’.
Eyestrain is a problem for students in class all day. Do not stand in front of windows or bright lights and add to this strain.
Face your audience when speaking. If you turn around to write or point, look down, or hold papers in front of you to read, students will not be able to speech read you. It would be like only hearing every 3 out of 5 words in a sentence. When you look down, they have to guess what you are saying. Remember, people who have hearing losses must use all available cues to get and interpret what they are hearing.
Finally, when you tell the class to retrieve materials, wait a few moments before continuing. Not only will the student with a hearing loss be looking down and retrieving the materials, a room full of people unzipping backpacks and flopping books around creates an uproar to a hearing aid user.