Considering Deaf Clients

Rose Karuna

Always cooking something up
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I wear hearing aids but even with them, I read lips as people are speaking and I use closed caption for video wherever I can for clarity. Yesterday my husband (who is completely deaf in one ear and has only partial hearing in the the other) and I had to go to the bank to have some papers notarized. We wore masks and everyone in the bank had a mask on. The young woman who came over to assist us spoke very softly. I could not hear a single word she said and either could my husband. I had to point to my obvious hearing aids and to his before she spoke up loud enough for us to hear. Which was "sorry, we're not doing notary because of COVID".

It's really frustrating but I'm not going to ask people to remove their masks, but please don't be offended if I ask you to speak up. It's not your accent, I'm not trying to be rude, I just can't hear you.
 

Beebo Brink

Climate Apocalypse Alarmist
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And I'm having the opposite problem. It's difficult enough for me to be heard under the best of circumstances, but with a mask on my voice is muffled out of existence. I'm reduced to hand gestures. So I'm now dependent on my wife, who is very hard of hearing, to carry on any conversations with pharmacy, vet or store clerks.
 

Khamon

Folk Harpist
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My voice is also muffled. I can make myself be heard through the mask, in most settings, but it's like yelling in a crowded club so generally makes me horse or mute the next day. Luckily work is quiet and we're not going anywhere else unless absolutely necessary due to the other's autoimmunity.
 

Rose Karuna

Always cooking something up
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I love this idea but my question is can people breathe through it? I know a lot of people who have a great deal of difficulty just breathing through a cloth mask in the heat and humidity in Florida. Has anyone here tried one of these?

Also I did buy a shield - but I still wear a mask out in general public with the shield.
 

Free

sapiens gratis
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Also I did buy a shield - but I still wear a mask out in general public with the shield.
I like this one on the page linked by Argent:



I can imagine if you're using both shield and mask, occasionally lowering the mask to improve communication wouldn't be much of an issue.
 

Kara Spengler

Queer OccupyE9 Sluni-Goon, any/all pronouns
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I am thinking of getting one of the clear masks. My wife and I lose out on communications when she can not see my lips as my signing is pretty sloppy.
 

Jopsy Pendragon

If you can't dazzle'm with dexterity...
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Shame that MouthOff is total crap for lip reading (it's got no phoneme awareness, just works by volume, I guess).

But it'd be fun to play with a novelty mask with a clear phone-pocket creating an 'animated mouth display'.
Heck, maybe even put word recognition in so it flashes words as you say them. "NO, MAYO! THANKS!"

 
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