Question
I share communication tips for people with hearing loss with my patients and their families. Are there specific things patients and their families can do to help with understanding on the phone?
Answer
Conversation tips are a great way to help people with hearing loss understand better in face-to-face conversations. Things like facing the person speaking, asking the person to speak slower (not louder), and minimizing background noise and distractions can help make communication easier.
However, it can be challenging to have phone conversations when someone has hearing loss, for many reasons. Communication tips for callers is not a practical solution. Callers may have little to no control over obstacles that impede the communication, and it can be next to impossible to change behavior in a fast-paced phone conversation. In addition, people with hearing loss may not always want to disclose their hearing loss to callers.
There are technological solutions that transfers the burden of being understood from the caller to the device, such as CaptionCall. CaptionCall makes it easy to communicate confidently by phone.
Similar to captioned television, CaptionCall captioning agents use voice recognition technology to quickly provide written captions of what callers say on a large, easy-to-read screen. CaptionCall provides accurate captioning for even the fastest talkers. Plus, CaptionCall offers exceptional sound quality with amplification and customizable audio settings to match an individual’s unique hearing loss. CaptionCall provides unmatched amplification up to 121.5 dB SPL. This enables people with hearing loss to hear the conversation better, and read what their caller says.
The CaptionCall phone, combined with free captioning service and red-carpet service (free delivery, installation, in-home training by a friendly CaptionCall Trainer, and ongoing customer support) enables people to use the phone again with confidence.
For more information or to get started with CaptionCall today, visit www.captioncall.com. For CE courses and other resources visit the CaptionCall Partner Page on AudiologyOnline.
