7 top tips for communicating with deaf people

When you have deafness or hearing loss, communication can be a real struggle. Here are some top tips for holding a conversation with someone who has hearing loss.

Top tips for communicating with people with hearing loss

1. Always face the person. Make and maintain eye contact while you’re talking. Try not to look away or cover your mouth as many deaf people rely on lip reading to help them understand you.
2. Check noise and lighting. Turn off or move away from background noise. Make sure your face is not in shadow and that there are no strong lights or sunshine in their eyes.
3. Keep your distance. Stand a metre or two away from the person. This is important for hearing-aid users, lip-readers and people who use sign language.
4. Speak clearly, slowly and steadily. Don’t mumble, shout or exaggerate because this can distort your lip patterns.
5. Take turns. If there is more than one person in the conversation, take turns to talk.
6. Repeat and re-phrase if necessary. If the person is struggling to understand you, trying to say the same thing in a different way might help.
7. Write it down. Don’t be afraid to write or draw to help the person’s understanding.

Finally, one of the most important points to remember is to keep trying, even if the person with deafness or hearing loss doesn’t understand what you’re saying the first few times.

So many deaf people have told us that when someone says ‘Oh, don’t worry. It doesn’t matter’ it feels like they mean ‘You don’t matter.’ Even if it takes four or five times of rephrasing or even writing down a message, don’t give up!