Not sure if this is the best place to post or not but here goes.

I am a speech-language pathologist (SLP) who works in a public school that has a Deaf and hard of program. The teacher of the Deaf (TOD) has made it very obvious that she finds SLPs to be worthless for her students. I do not feel like I can really talk to her or try to collaborate with her. I explained to her that my main priority is LANGUAGE and that I don’t just work on voicing (I’d actually prefer not to) but she believes that she’s the end all for her students.

To add to the frustration, I’m literally a hard of hearing person who is active in the Deaf community and trying to support the language/communication needs of students and she is a hearing woman with no personal connection to the Deaf community aside from her students.

I had wanted to stay at my school long term but I think I might end up leaving.

Also to note: I am the first signing SLP that they have ever worked with and if I leave they will go back to having an SLP who is ignorant on Deaf culture/experience

I’m just frustrated and needed to get this out to the ether.

I have CAPD and usually I have two different devices to game, one for the actual game and the other for voice chat (the game on my earphones and voice chat on loud speaker) because having it both come out of the same source makes it too difficult to understand and we have lost some runs solely because I don't hear neither instructions nor the game itself if I'll have both from speakers or if I'll have both on headphones. Having to use two devices for voice chat while gaming is bothersome. Is there any other solution for this, where I won't have to use two devices at once?

I’m deaf. Hard of hearing since birth, and I have gotten by thus far in life through a mix of the hearing I do have, plus lip reading. I have hearing aids, but hate wearing them. My insurance only pays for the very basic shitty ones, and they don’t help at all. Just give me headaches and increase background noise, making it even more difficult to hear than not wearing them.

I recently started a new job as a special education teacher. This is the first job I’ve had that is high-stakes enough that “getting by” isn’t enough to cut it when it comes to communication and getting information. Because of this, I’ve started learning ASL more seriously. I’m a little under two months into a class at my local community college, supplementing with Lingvano app, and practicing multiple hours a day. I’m improving really fast, but I’m still nowhere near proficient.

My job requires soooo many meetings. I have annual IEP meetings for all of the students on my caseload, plus eligibility and reevaluation meetings for several of them. On top of that, I have faculty meetings, PLC meetings, trainings, workshops, and parent teacher conferences. I’m really struggling. All of the rooms have horrible acoustics, so I am averaging about 5% understanding of what’s being said, but like 25% if I can see people’s lips.

I am wondering if there’s any existing sort of setup where I could buy a little microphone (or several) for speakers to attach to their shirts and send to my phone to transcribe what they’re saying. Sort of like “irl closed captioning.”

I think something like that might be enough to help me understand what people are saying until I become fluent enough that requesting an ASL interpreter for these meetings would be helpful. I know that even with daily practice, it might take at least a couple years to become truly fluent.

Any recommendations would be appreciated!

This occurred to me after seeing this Tiktok from a Deaf actress playing Zoe Murphy in the stage musical Dear Evan Hansen, in which she explains the sign names she created for three of the major characters in the show, those being herself, her brother Connor, and her eventual boyfriend Evan.

She's explained in other Tiktoks how this version of the show with a Deaf Zoe impacts the story, stating that her parents don't know a lot of ASL since they never took the time to learn it, being so preoccupied with her very troubled brother Connor, and how that compounds Zoe's isolation within her own family.

With this context, it seems like she's saying that Zoe gave herself her own sign name because she didn't have many, if any, signing people around who could've given it to her - except I'm aware that giving yourself your own sign name is a major faux pas within the Deaf community, even if you're Deaf yourself. But could you give yourself your own sign name if you truly had no one around to give you one?

Or am I overthinking this and making some odd leaps in logic from a couple of Tiktoks about a fictional character?

I know I am not the only one who is demotivated year by year because I can't understand shits what my professors are saying unless there are built in subtitles above their heads whenever they speak.

I'm a hard of hearing person, I have a profound hearing loss and having to deal with this every class makes me feel less motivated to study. My only options are to watch the lessons in youtube (with captioning features) after class or read a book dedicated to the subject.

Also I'm sitting in the front row where I can only face my professor, it just doesn't help that much.. I tried lip-reading but it feels so difficult to catch it 'cause I would realize by then I'm missing out the material.

I really don't know what to do, and I'm hoping for an advice. I'm a first year student, taking a math major. I also wear my hearing aids daily.

idk.. her sister was in my class last semester (spring) and i’d started using interpreters for all my classes bc i was losing a substantial amount of hearing very quick. i texted her the first day saying her sister was there i said hi and stuff then after my first class w my interpreter, i could see her sister kind of looking back and forth and then that same day my friend unfollowed me and stopped like sharing her location and stuff? we haven’t talk at all since then. we weren’t super close right before this situation but like :/ we were best friends thru hs. she’s very big on like anti-faking disabilities (as am i??) and taking resources u don’t need so idk :/ she always had a big of a strong-headed almost savior complex abt stuff like this so i feel sad she might’ve unfriended me for “faking”

the last time we saw each other irl too i didn’t have my hearing aids or a formal diagnosis for my hearing loss then after that i j started losing hella hearing

i went from the phillips RIC from costco to now phonak L-UPs (my current set up) in like a year and a half. i went thru 4 hearing aids. phillips RIC, jabra BTE, resound BTE, and now the phonaks. my audio says if my hearing loss continues slowly, which it has slowed down but i’n still consistently showing loss EVERY hearing test every like 3 months, i’ll be fully deaf in at most 5-10 years. if it speeds up again it’ll be much sooner. i have loss in every frequency. its gone from cookie bite w some normal hearing in 2-3 testing frequencies to now EVERY one has loss and my hearing loss is almost flat

its been hard and it would rlly suck if i lost a friend bc of this

Hey r/deaf 👋

Mods, same deal as last time: if this crosses the self-promo line, nuke it, no hard feelings. I'm posting here first again because you're the people it's built for, and a lot of what changed over the last few months came straight from your comments and DMs.

The short version:

deafmonitor.com is still one website for Deaf news, Deaf jobs, and Deaf events. It's still free to browse, with no waitlist and no "enter your email to see more." Since launch, I've been fixing what you told me was broken and building what you said was missing.

What's new since launch:

• Better news coverage. The aggregator now catches a lot more real Deaf news, in the US and internationally. It runs health checks throughout the day, and when it misses a story, I add the story and fix whatever caused the miss. It's also much better at skipping stuff that just happens to use the word "deaf" (product ads, "fell on deaf ears," random acronyms).
• The Signal. A daily briefing at deafmonitor.com/briefing that sums up what's happening in the community as a short, readable write-up instead of a wall of headlines.
• The DeafMonitor Weekly. A free email that lands every Monday morning with the week's biggest Deaf stories, events, and videos. It's one email a week, never daily, because nobody needs more inbox noise.
• A rebuilt phone version. Most of you read on your phones, so the site now has a tab bar at the bottom (News, Videos, Events, Sports, Me). It loads a lot faster and the search bar is easier to spot.
• A reader you can adjust. Every story has three real text sizes, a Readable mode, light and dark themes, plus Share, Save, and Copy link right at the top.
• Videos and Deaf sports. There's a video section with Signing Screen and Deaf in the News, plus Deaf sports scores and coverage.
• Follow it wherever you already are. New stories also go out on Facebook, X, Discord, and Telegram.
• Privacy fixes. IP addresses get scrambled, old analytics data gets deleted every night, the site respects "don't track me," and the consent wording is clearer.

Same promises as day one:

1. I'm Deaf. I built this for us, not at us. If something feels off, tell me.
2. I'm still one person. No VC money, no content farm, no hearing company cosplaying as an ally.
3. Things still break sometimes, and I still fix them fast.

What I'm asking:

• Look again, especially if you checked it out on launch day. It's a different site on a phone now.
• If you want the highlights without checking the site, sign up for the DeafMonitor Weekly.
• Tell me what's still wrong or missing. Comments or DMs.
• If you're a Deaf creator, business owner, or event organizer and you're not listed yet, get listed.
• If it's useful to you, tell one other Deaf person. That's still the whole marketing plan.

What I'm not asking for: money, upvotes, or a pile of "congrats!" comments. I just want your honest eyeballs and your honest feedback.

Free is still actually useful. Pro is $9.99/mo ($4.99 for students) if you want more depth.

Link: deafmonitor.com

Why are they always so dismissive of me and my issues? I had a very nice ENT when I was an adolescent who helped guide me through my hearing loss, including helping me get accommodations for college.

I go to college, graduate, try to find a new ENT to establish care (primarily bc I have chronic ear infections) and so far it’s been awful. The first one started off nice but I made a visit because I was concerned about my tinnitus getting worse. Her response? “You’re just stressed. Get a white noise machine and relax more.” Didn’t even care about my issue, just wanted to collect her money from my insurance.

I recently made an appointment with a second one, again primarily to establish care. I can’t hear low voices so I often asked him to repeat himself. He yelled every single time. Then he asked about my ear infections and went “well it’s impossible for you to have middle ear infections because that’s a pediatric problem. Instead you’re likely having fungal ear infections so I’ll prescribe you this cream they use to treat athletes foot.” All because I told him I don’t notice hearing loss when I have ear infections. I also told him that sometimes my ears get itchy but that’s related to my hearing aids and I’m working with my audiologist to solve that.

His response? “Oh well fungal ear infections are caused by hearing aids and those can make your ears itchy so it MUST be a fungal ear infection.” Like that may be the case but I’m 90% certain its caused by the domes I use on my hearing aids.

The only funny thing about this is that when I went to pick up the cream for my ears, the pharmacist was like “uhm does this doctor even know why he prescribed this to you??? You have no obvious symptoms of the reason why this medication is prescribed.” Yeah buddy I’ve been asking myself the same thing.

So I guess I’m on the hunt for a new ENT… again :/

hello! i’m a deaf person (20F, England) working in retail.
I have a cochlear implant & got it extremely young so I never had the chance to learn sign language as it was highly recommended from the NHS to my parents that i learn Spoken English rather than BSL.

My mum did start to learn the basics of sign language in the mid-2000s before she was told to drop it, she funnily enough, kept all the resources of the basics of sign language and gave it to me when i got older and asked about it. I did get taught very basic ones as a young child, drink, eat, thank you etc.

But beyond that, I know nothing. I had an opportunity to try in college for free when I was 16 but the sign language classes were locked to people who were doing certain courses like health and social care, which imo was stupid and i complained to the college. They opened it up to everyone when i left so i lost that opportunity.

Now, I work in a part-time job retail assistant while at university & i’m mainly on tills or just about the shop. I’ve came across a few deaf people who needed my help and i felt so painful in not being able to sign back to them, it felt like im locked out of a world. I do my best to face them, speak clearly and be patient as I know that’s what I want people to do for me.

Any advice in learning BSL in England?

I'm a failure of a brother. I am the sibling of a deaf adult, and at 30 years old my sign language hasn't improved, but has actually gotten worse. I used to be able to have an entire conversation with my older brother when we were children, but now... I can barely manage to remember a single sign and struggle with keeping up whenever he or any other Deaf person signs at/with me. I am so ashamed. I am so embarrassed. I am so saddened when I see my older brother sitting alone and I can see the loneliness in his eyes and face whenever I or anyone else struggles to communicate with or translate for him. Why haven't I been able to find the time and make the effort to be better for my brother? Why the fuck is it so difficult to find affordable and consistent classes to learn? I remember when I started using SignSchool to learn and would come to him to show him my progress, the way he would smile and laugh and correct me towards using his preferred sign, but I couldn't even keep that up... I couldn't even remember the signs I learned. I can never remember. I am a failure. How can I say I love my brother when I can't even learn sign langauge properly? How can I say I care for him when I can't even show him that he's not alone? How can I ever truly say I have his best interests in ind when I can't ever develop my skills? I'm a failure of a brother. ALl I want to and can do is cry. Why is it so difficult for me to learn, and stay committed?

Please, how can I finally learn ASL for the sake of my brother? I' not looking for reassurance nor am I looking for chastisement. I just want to talk to and be there for my brother. PLease. Please, and thank you.

What movies would you recommend that you think represent the Deaf community the best?

What movies do you think misrepresents the Deaf, and why.

I am in Portugal and I have been a nurse since I am 21, for five years, and recently I decided to learn portuguese sign language to be able to help more people, even though I have never in my life met anyone completely deaf.

I went to the bus stop, tired, after being at the library all day studying sign language, when I see a group teenage boys at the bus stop and a young man, somewhat older than me early 30s, standing alone.

I looked at panel where we could see live the bus stops timeline and how many minutes were left. Then I looked at the man to ask if that thing was for real and to be trusted but as soon as opened to talk to him, he gestured something and it came to me! He could not hear a thing I was saying!! So omg I just started gesturing back in sign language trying to grasp the basics and then I just ran excitedly to him to show my online classes and that I was learning LOL I must have made quite a fool of myself

But we ended up connecting, he fortunately knew how to write on the phone so our communication was mostly via texting on his phone questions since I am basic level still. He corrected some of my signs and we had blast and went straight to underground metro together.

I almost fell two times and he caught me both times. I ended up writing my number and told him it was so nice to meet him. He looked very happy and saved my number. I arrived first at my station and as I was departing he smiled widely and did not let me go without hugging my hand.

When I came to bus stop tonight, I must admit I was secretely hoping to see him there.

It has been 24 hours already and he has not texted anything and I am almost afraid I accidentally misspelled my number lol. I hope I did not bore him too much with questions deaf related, I did not mean to make him feel like a freak, I was just really excited to learn and curious about his experience

Hope to see him again 😊

For some necessary context, I’m Deaf, have been my whole life, but only started learning sign in the last 5 years.

About a year ago, I had a falling out with a friend group of entirely hearing individuals. The situation leading up to the fallout isn’t relevant, but needless to say, I don’t consider myself friends with the vast majority of them anymore. But, when I was friends with them all, I became their primary introduction to Deaf culture and ASL. A lot of them learned ASL from me and became very passionate. Of course, that was awesome and I really appreciated having equal access sometimes (note: not always). However, since my fallout with them, my perception of their use of ASL has soured. A lot of them use ASL as a way to have side conversations apart from people and have seemingly obtained merch supposing a greater connection to Deaf culture than they actually have (since I was their only Deaf friend). I feel a lot of emotions about it, and I wanted to ask if I’m just being an a-hole and bitter or if this is legit weird behavior on their part.

I am writing here with utter sadness and hope if someone can help. My nephew who is 3 year old, I suspect dont hear. His characterstick are: He is extra focused on thing, highly organized for his agar. For example if y if you gave him a number of car with a different color so let's say we are giving him the 3 color of the car like it is the 2 of the blue car and one is the yellow car and he would arrange the car into that blue yellow blue and if you try to shuffle the car. Order so he will again arrange it and put the the yellow color car in the middle and the second example is, for example, when he's watching television. So when he's done watching television, he would switch off television from the remote, and then he will put the remote from where the place he he picked it up. And the third example is that he always makes sure that his diaper is in the dustbin, and if it is not in dustupin, he would pick up the diaper, put into dustpin and he actually behave, there's no sign that he's some neurological Disorder. he eats and he play and he play like normal kid and he fights with his brother and he and he also kind of cry also when he doesn't get thing and also get very irritated when things is not according to him and he's very protective of the thing he wants like for example, if someone take his brother take something which is his for like twice. He knows that it's historic. And then he will start fighting biting. Basically, he does everything there a normal kid would do, except the hearing part like when someone shouts his name, he wouldn't care as if he's just not listening at all and nothing at all, he's just not listening. we are just wondering who do we actually go to. We went to the Dr. who says , there no problem with his ear. So I'm totally lost at like what is happening here and if someone can help me if someone have a kid, something like that. So we are based in India, so it would be very great if someone from India can I actually have or recommend any doctor or someone who should we go to

Google Translate on my phone has saved my bacon numerous times. I have become interested in captioning glasses such as XRAI or Transcribe Glass. I have been noticing some negative backlash in public to smart glasses like Meta that can record video. People seem to hate the idea that you may be surreptitiously recording them in public even more than if you openly do it with your phone.

Has anyone used captioning glasses and had negative public reaction because someone thought you were actually recording them?

hii! so i know other ppl have made posts like this, but i really don’t know who else to talk to ab this so i’m really seeking some help/comfort/idk what.

so i became HoH at 16, and my hearing has very slowly declined since then (im 21 now). i started learning ASL shortly after i learned ab my hearing, hold several positions at my uni (ASL TA, President of the ASL club, etc), and have a name sign. basically, i feel pretty deep in my local community/Deaf immersion.

now, my close friend (hearing) has taken ASL 1-4 and is technically probably more “fluent” than i am (from a vocab and grammar perspective). so i think she feels comfortable constantly correcting me on like.. anything. if i produce a sign wrong, she corrects it before i even have the chance to correct myself. i have the habit of mouthing/clicking my lips and tongue when signing, and she told me it’s rude/distracting from my actual signing. she also becomes slightly annoyed when I ask her to repeat things (i do not have hearing aids due to financial inaccessibility/personal choice). one day, she said “jesus really, is it that bad?” and i had to snap back “well would you like me to tape my audiogram to my forehead?”

long story short, she’s continuously making me question my own identity. it’s taken me a long road to get as comfortable as i am now with who i am, my hearing loss, and my signing. i’m just kinda at a loss, because i thought a major “rule” was for hearing people to not criticize or try to critique Deaf/HoH people. like, am i not seen as “HoH” enough bc i still speak, or because i don’t wear hearing aids?

any advice would be appreciated :’) please be kind, it’s something weighing heavily on me.

I'm HoH, progressively going deaf, and a quadrapalegic. I use Google's Live Transcribe app for in person communication.

It was great and fairly accurate for a minute. Lately its been buggy as hell deleting part of the conversant in real time before I can read it.

Anyways, I've been looking for other apps that are close to the speed and accuracy for in person communication. I've tried Otter and Ava but they both had speed and other issues.

hii everyone :) i have pretty debilitating ptsd and have been having amazing recovery results completely blocking my hearing. ear defenders + earphones playing white noise has been really working (though i will keep trying stronger products in hopes to be able to get dead silence !)

this now means that a lot of the time at home + all of the time im outside i cant hear absolutely anything (except the white noise playing). and its amazing ! i havent been able to go out just for leisure in a very long time, ive never felt any sort of peace before so im really excited about how much this is changing my life :)

anyway, taking everything on and off would be really distressing (and tedious), so this does now mean that most of the time i cant communicate with anyone. im learning BSL and hoping to get involved with local sign language based events like classes and clubs where i can meet other signers + learners, but with my loved ones most of my in person interactions now consist of me standing there silently while everyone else talks, interacting with them completely silently like just waving or holding hands and maybe being written a note or two :/

some of them have shown an interest in sign language before, id love to be able to sign with them but i know hearing people arent suppose to teach sign. is this just if its for monetary gain ? is it ok if its genuinely my accessible means of communication ? i dont mean any disrespect to the deaf and hoh community !!! i would just really love to accessibly communicate with my loved ones again and i dont think anyone has the time or money to come to classes with me :( (tho i will suggest it !) ok thank u for reading bye !!!! 🩷🩷🩷

Hi! I consider myself a hearing person but have a range of sound frequencies with “hearing impairment” that affects my ability to understand people speaking. The funny thing is that for most other stuff I am on the hyperacusis side and I can hear a lot of little things that others cannot. I have found that wearing a badge with an eye-catching symbol and label and “please be patient and speak clearly” is very helpful. I am a student doctor and work with many different people that are constantly changing over. I have a passion for disability rights (and I also have physical disabilities) and am learning introductory ASL but am not really part of the Deaf community. I know that the phrase “hearing impaired” is not favored by the community, but I am wondering about using it for myself as someone who feels outside of the community. I think the essence is to emphasize that Deaf/HoH people are not damaged hearing people, but there are many people who have “loss” or “damage“ to their previous hearing state, such as from an acoustic trauma or barotrauma, so is it that still offensive? To me, I am a hearing person with an impairment to my hearing.

A little context:
I need people to face me when speaking. I need subtitles for videos and lyric sheets for songs. I need to look at people’s mouths to help me figure out what they are saying. I need reduced background noise to understand.

My mother and I and possibly her mother as well have notched audiograms that do not follow typical patterns of hearing damage. We all have lived the lives of hearing people and have either used or are getting hearing aids. I hope to get a Roger device.

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This message is not about any person. It is about protecting vulnerable community members who may not understand the risks.

Please be careful with any platform that keeps delaying, has no product, moves people to new systems, or does not return money. Please share this to Deaf Community Globally.

I have a family member who lives long-distance from me in Phoenix Arizona. Hard of hearing their whole life, relied on lip reading and aids, but has started learning sign now that they are fully Deaf (from old age).

I work in the interpreting community in my area out of state, but have no experience with cart captioning, the process for requesting or how it's set up, etc.

Is there a company you recommend? I'm planning to call his doctor's office on his behalf and request one for his next appointment. He prefers a virtual captioner I think, but not automatic captions. Will the office need an iPad similar to VRI? Does the office download an app? Are caption agencies local or nationalized? If there are companies that do both captions and VRI/Interpreting, that would be nice since some day he may want to switch to using an interpreter.

He is very hesitant to request this because he's grown up with the "burden" mindset, so I really really want this to go smoothly for him his first time, especially since I can't be there with him.

Hi everyone,

is there a smoke detector you could recommend? I really liked the nest home, since it talked and I can not hear high-pitched sounds like the sound of regular smoke detectors.

It would also be great if it could be integrated to home kit.

Azish Qureshi, a third-year computer science student, said he got the idea while visiting a friend who uses American Sign Language (ASL) with their parents.