Supporting your loved ones this Christmas:
With Christmas just around the corner and last minute gifts to get, it easy to become distracted during the chaos of the festivities. With this, it is important to take time to consider your family and friends who are deaf or have a form of hearing loss.
This Christmas blog will focus on the ways that you can make communication easier at what people consider to be the most wonderful time of the year.
Here is now you can help:
- Keep background noise to a low: Christmas is a time where the music is turned up and the dad dancing comes out in full force. However, with this, comes an obstacle in communication with lipreading becoming hard to concentrate on. To make sure everyone remains involved in the conversation, keep the volume of the music to a low.
- Keep the conversation going: Christmas is a time where we all come together to discuss family drama and politics. It is important to let your deaf and hard of hearing relatives know if there has been a change in conversation topic. A key rule is that you must not say that it “doesn’t matter”, as it will leave your family member feeling isolated and that their involvement “doesn’t matter”.
- Ask how you can help: Hearing loss varies between individuals, meaning that it is important to ask how you can help with communication. Simple adjustments can make such a significant difference and make your loved ones comfortable this Christmas. This can include, taking turns in speaking and making sure you are facing the individual you are speaking to.
- Keep the subtitles on: As Christmas gets closer, we all make sure to look out for the Christmas TV schedule and with the Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special on the big day, it is important to make sure everyone is involved with the use of subtitles. Subtitles are great as it allows the whole family to be involved and make commentary on the show.
- Learn some Christmas signs in BSL: Spread the festive cheer by learning some festive signs in BSL that you can use with your family and friends. An easy place for you to learn these is on the Signature social media channels as there are regular posts teaching different festive signs.
