12 Tips to Welcome a Deaf or Hard of Hearing Person

You don’t know sign language and you sometimes welcome deaf or hard of hearing people? Don’t panic!

For fear of doing wrong, we often just keep quiet. However, there are tips to facilitate verbal communication with deaf people. So, in an attempt to reestablish this dialogue this article will provide you with tips to make everyone comfortable. 

The objective is to help hearing people working in the public and private sector by making them aware of simple ways to facilitate communication with deaf and hard-of-hearing people.

What are the right things to do? How to adapt your environment and your body language? Here are 12 tips to help facilitate verbal exchanges daily.

1. Ensure good lighting and absence of backlighting especially behind the reception desk                                                          
2. If possible make dubbing of audio messages available by a visual display with text but also images and pictograms   
3. Use amplification systems or a induction loop system to improve hearing quality for people wearing hearing aids  
4. Provide paper or a smartphone to write or draw if necessary          
5. Provide suitable visual aids: signage, written documents, diagrams, visual guides in American Sign Language etc.     
6. Speak directly to the person even if he or she is accompanied     
7. No need to scream or raise your voice. It distorts the articulation 
8. Stand in front of the deaf or hard-of-hearing person. Stand in the light but not against the light so that he or she can see your lips when speaking 
9. Express yourself clearly and distinctly by marking downtime (without exaggerating) to see if the person understands      
10. Use a common vocabulary avoiding word play and expressions 
11. Reformulate if necessary by using synonyms 
12. Check the message’s understanding: beware of misunderstandings! 

Hearing-impaired people have very different profiles. The choice of communication varies from one person to another and their environment. These simple and easy-to-implement tips will allow you to interact with every visitor or client, taking into account hearing impairment in all its diversity.

To understand more about this invisible impairment, the article 8 Clichés About Deaf People will help you toss aside prejudices to welcome deaf people in the best possible way.

Feel free to share these tips around you to make all your staff aware of good communicative attitudes.