Last Friday was a one-day mini-meeting for local applied mathematicians to get together and share their research, and it’s made me think about the additional not-so-visible work that I put in and think about to accommodate my own hearing loss.
Venue Scouting: Ideally I swing by venue at some point before the actual event to figure out everything else I lay out in this post. Rarely is this possible for me nowadays so the next best alternative is to turn up early – last Friday I turned up 30 minutes earlier than the starting time and was the first to arrive. I’d guessed from the building naming convention and an estimation of attendance numbers that the venue was going to be a large tutorial room instead of a lecture theatre.
Venue Equipment: Modern large tutorial rooms and lecture theatres are usually outfitted with lapel microphones for the presenters, and handheld microphones to hand off for audience questions. Since this was a large tutorial room in an older building, neither of those were available. This meant now I have to think about where speakers are likely to stand which dictates where I should sit in order to hear them better, and where I should position my own microphone. I seated myself close to the presenting computer in an area where presenters were most likely to stand. I also had to accept that I would not be able to hear any questions from the other audience members (which is usually the norm for me).
Personal Equipment: There’s two pieces of technology I use to get by. The first is my Widex Sound Assist which can be used two ways: the first is as a single-speaker microphone that is worn around the neck like a lanyard. I had forgotten to bring its lanyard that day, but given that there was a different chair (host that introduces the speakers) for each session (who all needed to be independently informed), and student talks were only 15 minutes each, people taking on/off my lanyard microphone and passing it onto the next person rarely happens smoothly because they’re not used to it.
It’s second main usage, as an omnidirectional mic (now a single small square with no lanyard) placed on the table, was sufficient. Most speakers tend to stay in one place and talk, but there will be some speakers who pace around, so being able to capture a wider range is important. It also meant that I had control over the position of the Sound Assist, so I could adjust and move it around to my needs.
The other is my own phone with Google Live Transcribe for captions. I ended up relying on it for an afternoon block since my hearing aid was running out of battery due to all-day usage of the Sound Assist. One can imagine that listening can be exhausting for one with hearing loss because the brain works harder to fill in words, so having captions helps gives both my ear and brain a rest. Since I was already seated directly in front of the speakers, my phone’s transcription accuracy wasn’t compromised by proximity.
I typed a lot here, but making all of these decisions happen very quickly in less than 5 minutes once I’ve walked into the room and taken a look around.
People might wonder why I’m not a loud advocate for accessibility. It’s just not my nature to be that kind of person, and that comes from my Asian cultural roots in preferring not to rock the boat, and look for solutions that evade changing human behaviour. I largely prefer (and would like to be a part of) systemic solutions that minimise the number of people having to change their behaviour, in this case this includes:
- The organiser choosing a more modern venue with sufficient audio equipment.
- Updating older buildings with said equipment, and with relevant newer equipment (in this case, Auracast is the big one for me).
- Choosing chairs/hosts/organisers that are familiar with said accommodations, does the research, pre-empts solutions, and actually reaches out to ask/discuss/learn. I’m happy to volunteer to be one for future events so that I can set an example and standard for others.
My dream scenario is that I should be able to walk into any event/venue and not have to talk to others to negotiate my accommodations. If you’re wondering why I can’t rely on others more often, well…can you imagine how many people have failed in the past that I’ve had to be patient with?
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