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 B'YACHAD –
A CELEBRATION OF LIFE
On April 25, 2009, we held a shabbat service focused on raising awareness of special needs in our community. Please see the Shabbat drashot:
• Perman Family Drashot
• Rabbi Chai Levy's Drash: Tazria Metzora
New Building Plan
The new building will be built with a wireless loop system. All hearing aid users with a telecoil switch can simply walk in the building and switch their hearing aid to the “T” setting and then access. For more information about these systems, please see: "http://www.hearingloop.org" www.hearingloop.org.
Resources
If you or someone you know is hearing impaired (31 million Americans are), here are some resources:
Hearing Loss Association of America
www.hearingloss.org
Hearing Loss Exchange www.hearingexchange.com/blogs/
Jewish Deaf Congress www.jewishdeafcongress.org
Jewish Deaf Blog
www.deafjews.blogspot.com
Hearing & Speech Center of Northern California
www.hearingspeech.org
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Tips for communicating with people
who are hard of hearing:
• Set your stage: Face person directly. Spotlight your face (no backlighting).
• Avoid noisy backgrounds.
• Get person’s attention first.
• Ask how you can facilitate communication.
• Project your communication: Don’t shout! Speak clearly, at a moderate pace.
• Don’t hide your mouth, chew gum, or eat while talking.
• Re-phrase if you are not understood.
• Use facial expressions and gestures.
• Give clues when changing subject.
• Be patient if response seems slow.
In addition:
1. Speakers use microphones, repeat questions and comments that come from the group.
2. Be sure there is no light shining from behind you into the hearing impaired person’s eyes, so that they can read your lips. Move away from in front of a window or close the blinds.
3. For men with beards and moustaches it is easier to lip read if you keep these trimmed around the lips.
4. While you are talking, try not to bring your hands to your mouth or cover your mouth in any way.
5. Don’t talk while chewing.
6. Speak up and out rather than down to your book or plate or to one side, without mumbling or swallowing your words.
7. If the person doesn’t understand, find a different way to say what you mean, rather than continually repeating the same phrase.
8. In a group, look around and make sure everyone in the group can see your face when you talk and that you are sitting back far enough so that no one else’s face is blocked.
9. Speak clearly and distinctly.
10. Help to create an environment where repetition is welcome.
11. Perhaps the most important thing is for only one person to speak at a time.
12. In a group, find a way to indicate who is speaking such as raising your hand, or having the group leader call on people. Often the hearing impaired person misses half the sentence because he/she is trying to discern the source of the sound (hearing impairment can cause one to lose directionality in sounds) and by the time he/she finds who is speaking, they are done.
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