Hear & Beyond: Live Skillfully with Hearing Loss

by Shari Eberts, Gael Hannan

Overview

Hearing loss doesn’t come with an operating manual—until now.

If you have hearing loss, you already know that the conventional approach to treatment is focused on hearing-aid technology. Without a handbook to help you figure out how to actually live with it, you’ve likely been getting by on information pieced together from various sources—and yet, communication often seems incomplete and unsatisfying.

What’s missing from this hearing care model is the big picture—a real-life illustration of how hearing loss, its emotions, and its barriers affect every corner of your life. Now, hearing-health advocates, consultants, and speakers Shari Eberts and Gael Hannan offer a new skills-based approach to hearing loss that is centered not on hearing better, but on communicating better.

With honesty and humor, they share their own hearing loss journeys, and outline invaluable insights, strategies, and workarounds to help you engage with the world and be heard. You’ll gain tips for navigating all areas impacted by hearing loss, including relationships, work, technology; strategies for adopting a new, empowering mindset towards your hearing loss; and communication behaviors that can make almost any listening situation manageable.

Informed by the lived experiences of thousands of people living with hearing loss, and corroborated by hearing science, technological advances, and modern hearing-care principles, Hear & Beyond offers a new way forward to greater connection and engagement—whether you’re new to hearing loss or have been living with it for a long time.

Hearing loss is just one aspect of who you are, among many others. You may have hearing loss, but it doesn’t have to have you.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781774581605
Publisher:	Page Two Books, Inc.
Publication date:	05/03/2022
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	226,283
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 5.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Shari Eberts is a passionate hearing health advocate and internationally recognized author and speaker on hearing loss issues. She is the founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com, a popular blog and online community for people with hearing loss, and an executive producer of We Hear You, an award-winning documentary about the hearing loss experience. Shari has an adult-onset genetic hearing loss and hopes that by sharing her story, she will help others to live more peacefully with their own hearing issues. She lives in New York City.

Gael Hannan is a hearing health advocate, writer, and speaker/performer who lives with profound hearing loss. She creates award-winning awareness projects that help people live more successfully with their hearing challenges, including the acclaimed one-woman show “Unheard Voices”, a humorous memoir “The Way I Hear It: A Life with Hearing Loss” and a regular blog for HearingHealthMatters.org that has a passionate international following. Gael lives on Vancouver Island.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Art of Living Skillfully with Hearing Loss 1

The Big Picture: Understanding the Journey 7

1 The Journey Is Personal 11

2 The Five Stages of the Journey 21

3 When You Also Experience Tinnitus 37

Mindshifts: A New Approach to Hearing Loss 43

4 Changing Your Mind 47

5 The MindShifts 53

6 How to Shift Your Mind 59

Technology: Plugging into Better Hearing 67

7 Befriending Technology 71

3 Devices from Hearing Care Professionals 77

9 Direct-to-Consumer Devices 95

10 Using Apps to Help You Hear 103

11 External Accommodations 107

Communication Game Changers: Transforming the Conversation 115

12 Don't Hide, Self-Identify! 119

13 Speechreading Basics 127

14 Advocating for Yourself 133

15 No Bluffing! 143

16 Adopting "HEAR" 147

17 Communication Best Practices 155

18 When Nothing Else Works 159

Relationships and Support Networks: Bringing Your People with You 161

19 The Impact on Relationships 165

20 Family Support 173

21 Romantic Relationships 181

22 Parenting Safely and Soundly 191

23 Friends Will Stay, Friends Will Go 197

24 Tapping the Power of Peers 201

25 In the Workplace 207

26 Choosing the Right HCP 215

Hearing Hacks: Putting It All Together 223

27 Hacks for Every Occasion 227

28 Social Events 231

29 Entertainment 237

30 Health Care 247

31 On the Job 253

32 Traveling 259

33 Exercise Classes 263

34 Outdoor Activities 267

Conclusion: The Journey Continues 271

Acknowledgments 275

Notes 277

Index 279