On being hard of hearing and noise levels

INTRODUCTION

I am hard of hearing. I was born this way, and inherited the genes. In the warp and woof of the universe, there may be unseen or unknown twists (or knots). And these emerge into the known universe as apparent defects. This must be one of those knots. I sometimes think that, having the genes for it, I was blessed with the high intelligence genes that come with them as well.

Handicap’s suck, but what I have is not called a ‘handicap’. It’s called a “hearing impairment”. As it happens, it is considered a minor disability by the government. I do not agree that it is minor, especially when I miss the words being spoken to me. Communication is critical to being human. But hearing becomes difficult in many situations for me.
Rooms with high ceilings, ‘live’ rooms, crowded rooms, restaurants, even just more than one person speaking at a time, can block all kinds of conversation. Speaking on the telephone is problematic. Even the ones that are so-called hearing aid compatible.

Hearing impairment does not keep me from being a successful engineer, but it is a big challenge in the corporate setting.

Here is a quote from the Hard of Hearing Advocates website. I appreciate this because it describes something that I have never quite been able to articulate, perhaps out of embarrassment.

“Hard of hearing people may hear all the words of a joke but yet not comprehend the nuance or secondary meaning of the words, and therefore do not get the joke. It is this inability to get the full message that adds stress, exhausting hard of hearing people to the point that they want to flee the situation. The stress, however, does not stop with the exit but may continue for hours causing some to turn to tranquilizers or alcohol.

“People with normal hearing can be spoken to and understand what was said in the presence of other sounds. Hard of hearing people often can’t do that. Even when doing simple tasks, hard of hearing people must stop in order to concentrate on what is being said. The result is more stress. By itself, that is a minor problem. But people who are hard of hearing must be always alert to when conversation may or may not be taking place–particularly when background sounds exist.”

more readingHard of Hearing Advocates: Emotional Factors of HOH

Contrary to popular belief, hearing aids do not give a “normal hearing” experience. Even the best digital devices worn on both ears do not render hearing as well as nature. Soft sounds like whispers or certain nuances of speech are all but missing.

When the hearing aid does not handle the sonic material well, I remove my hearing aids and revert to naked ears. There is nothing quite like the unencumbered ear to hear, and it is much better at the details than a hearing aid ever will be.

2 –3 out of 1000 babies are born hard-of-hearing or deaf. So I did not even know another hard-of-hearing person, besides my grandparents and their friends, until after college. As a teen I was self-conscious about my appearance and my ability to hear. I hated having to explain to other kids what I had in my ear was not a wad of cotton. So often I went without, even though it was a disadvantage in the social setting.

It’s taken me all my life to cope. And “coping” is a weird word to describe it. I can hardly describe what coping mechanisms are, since many are subconscious. I am going to try to put them down on paper for the first time.

WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT MY SELF

I have had some strange experiences with new acquaintances over the years. More than once, I have been befriended by people who tell me that their first impression was that I was either not very smart or just strange. After they learned about my hearing impairment, they say that they understood me and liked me much better. I used to think there was something I had said.

Since I was married 2 years ago, I have learned things about myself that I never knew as a single. The things that stand out are the ones that relate to coping. What evidence do I have of these coping mechanisms if they are subconscious?

Casper, our deaf cat. He’s a great cat.

My aural experience

I am, indeed, different. My aural world (unaided) is at a lower volume. Everything is ‘quieter’. Voices tend to be muffled, and when you need to hear, the sound of voices is often too faint to clearly distinguish. It’s not exactly like cotton in the ears, but not far from that. I can only hear a part of the ordinary speech that a hearing person can hear clearly, even with hearing aids.
It is not pleasant to ask people to repeat themselves because they do not speak loudly enough, but I have to do this all the time. Even with hearing aids in both ears, I need to concentrate on the speaker. My hearing is about 25-40 decibels below normal. That means I miss about 2/3 of normal volume speech. The numbers do not mean much to most people and especially not understood by people with normal hearing. By itself, the technical definition of decibels and sound pressure levels doesn’t mean much to people. Suffice to say that, without my hearing aids, I miss half or more of speech.

Before I was 8, I took lip reading classes, taking lessons twice a week. Lip reading was strange and did not work. People do not enunciate correctly anyway, or they turn their faces away, so lip reading was not a good solution. I began wearing a hearing aid when I was 8. But hearing aids are not a panacea as some hearing aid manufacturers and audiologists want you to believe.

about deafness

An engineering experience with HVAC (technical)

During the design of the new Samuel Fels High School in Philadelphia, my design team and I had to deal with the question of noise levels. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) sets the maximum noise level in a classroom at NC = 25. This is very quiet. NC (Noise Coefficient) is a measurement of background noise levels in a room and accounts for normal sounds like the HVAC (air movement in ducts and air diffusers), lighting ballasts, external noise sources. An NC = 25 is about the same background as an average private office with the door closed.

But this noise limitation excluded “unit ventilators” from consideration. Even though the school district preferred low cost, easily maintained vertical style unit ventilators. Those are a type of fan coil typically built into the outside walls with a control panel, outside air louvers, heating and cooling coils, and they are designed to handle the entire HVAC load.

Unfortunately, nobody makes a vertical unit ventilator which complies with the maximum permissible noise level at the rated capacity (with fan speed on high). Ironic, since so many of these have been sold for classroom applications. The models we saw from various manufacturers were unable to keep the noise below NC=28.

In a classroom, noise reduction is problematic since the room typically has hard surfaces, like plaster walls and ceilings, and no carpeting, which create sound reflection and a louder background level. We tried to find a solution with the architects and the sound consultants. But there was nothing we could do with the rooms and the unit ventilators that would bring the noise levels down to NC 25.

The fans on these units are extremely close to the room and the supply outlet. The sound attenuation is problematic when they run at high speed (3 speed fans). I pushed for and received a commitment that my design team would not compromise on the noise rules. Even though other school district projects had permitted exceptions to this noise rule, and allowed unit ventilators in other new schools, I recommended, and the school district accepted, central air handlers with ductwork as a good alternative, even though it is somewhat more expensive to build.

For my part, I wondered why the school district of Philadelphia does not care about meeting the ADA across the entire school system, for the sake of the hearing impaired students. Anyway, to comply with the ADA noise limits, the unit fans must be turned down to medium or low speed. I suppose that the teachers can and will take control of these in order to be heard, but I don’t think this is what the law intended.

Quoting the federal register in 1998 regarding ADA (1990 American with Disabilities Act)
“… Poor acoustics can also compromise the effectiveness of personal hearing aids and devices and limit the usefulness of auxiliary aids and services. Good acoustics can enhance the usefulness of such aids and improve listener reception of unamplified speech, as may occur in group interchange. but which would achieve the desired noise levels. “

Federal Register

The Science of sound

As an engineer and armchair scientist, I have learned that sound has a lot of variables.

The short list
Sound source
quality, (pure tones, mixed tones, included noise, and so on)
loudness, sound power levels (signal)
waveform,
the placement and orientation

The speaker
Position relative to the listener
Mumbling
Too quiet to be heard
Voice frequency coincide with frequency of greatest loss
Poor speaking habits
Speech impediment
foreign language or strong regional accent

The environment itself, with characteristics of its own,
attenuation, wave reforming
reflection, (scattering, echos)
absorption (
Ambient noise.
Signal:noise ratio (background noise competing with the sound source)

The receiver
position
orientation
whether I am wearing a hearing aid or not, or a telephone something else
in one ear or both? Cell phones are particularly difficult.
Style and name brand .

Hearing Aids are Frickin expensive

The cost of hearing aids is not well known. I mentioned the purchase price of my new hearing aid as $1800 and, that it was not covered by insurance to some fellow workers and they were surprised by this. It’s off the radar. Its not a visible handicap.

Up until recently, I only wore one because I could not afford to buy two. Since I first started wearing hearing aids in 1964, I used one not two. Lately, I have seen reports by so-called experts that there is a major drawback to having a hearing aid in only one ear, even to the point of psychological problems. The hearing loss itself is enough of a problem , thank you. I do not sense that I have permanently damaged my brain by only wearing one aid for 40+ years.

Stereo. Having both ears completely synched allows one to turn the volume down due to the audio synthesis I never noticed before. In the past, when I attempted to wear two, I had to stop since I felt like I had fallen into a deep well and it was very hard to make out speech with a second hearing aid.

Now there is a “open” style speaker setup. What an improvement! The sounds were much more natural, as there is no barrier between your ear canal and the outside, and I think that this development is as important as the digital electronics.

I have seen and heard arguments told that we are overpaying for the hearing aids. Especially in light of what you can buy on the consumer market at that price, it seems that we are not getting much. I wish there was a way to shop around. I have been buying hearing aids a long time, and its hard to get one past me, but I have made my mistakes too. The fact that my hearing is growing gradually worse over time does make it trickier. I will probably have to replace my hearing aids every 6 years or so as usual.

Losing hearing aids is always a hassle. Sometimes I find them a day or two later, crushed in the carpet. Other times I never see them again. In any event, its an expensive proposition.

INSURANCE

Many people do not realize that hearing aids are not covered by medical insurance. Over the last 27 years, I have replaced my hearing aid on average every 6 years, and laid out about $10,000 (probably $18,000 in todays dollars).

VOCATION/AVOCATION IMPACT

I was always drawn to visual related work. It was always easier for me to read and look at things, than to try to hear and decipher what was aurally communicated. Socializing was always a bit hard. Since this was the fact, it makes sense that I would be doing something that focuses on the visual. Hence, as a young boy, I was drawn to artistic and physical science interests. I drew, painted and sculpted pretty often in school. I majored in architecture in my first degree because I had a pretty good apttude for drawing. After college I spent years on the drafting board designing HVAC systems.

WHERE I AM NOW
Continuing to learn and share this with others. Bringing a message of hope and wisdom to other people who are hard of hearing.

My audiogram

250.Hz L-45 R-40
500.Hz L-40 R-40
1000.Hz L-55 R-60
2000.Hz L-65 R-60
3000.Hz L-65 R-55
4000.Hz L-70 R-65
6000.Hz L-80 R-70
8000.Hz L-85 R-80