This is the second of ten small rules that make daily life easier for anyone living with a person who has hearing loss. None of them cost anything. All of them work.
When someone misses what you said, the instinct is to say it again, louder. It is a generous instinct. It just does not do what you are hoping it will do.
Volume is not the part that is broken. When you shout, most of the extra power goes into the vowels — the open, low sounds that were already coming through fine. The consonants that separate one word from the next stay just as soft and just as blurred, and the whole sentence starts to distort on top of that. Loud and mushy is harder to follow than quiet and mushy.
If the person is wearing hearing aids, there is a second problem. The aid is already doing the amplifying, and it has been set to the amount that person needs. Shouting pushes more sound into it than it was fitted to handle. What comes out the other side is not clearer, just harder to sit through — and speech that is uncomfortably loud is not speech anyone can concentrate on.
Then there is the part that has nothing to do with acoustics. A raised voice sounds like anger, even when there is none in it. The person hears the volume, reads it as impatience, and the next time they miss something they think twice before asking. That is usually how people stop asking. Not because they stopped caring about the conversation, but because asking started to cost them something.
What works instead is slower and calmer. Drop your pace a little. Keep your voice at a normal, firm level and let the words separate from one another — a small pause between phrases gives the brain a moment to catch up and fill in what the ears missed. Face them while you do it. And if you are across the kitchen, walk over rather than turning up the volume from where you stand. Closer is worth far more than louder, and it does not sound like you are cross.
The Commandments So Far
- Thou Shalt Face Me When You Speak — Hearing loss isn’t only about volume. Lips, expression, and body language carry a large share of the message.
- Thou Shalt Not Shout — Shouting distorts speech before it clarifies it. Slower and clearer beats louder every time.
Hearing aids do part of this job, and modern ones do it well. The rest belongs to the people in the room — the pace you speak at, and the tone you use while you do it.
I come to you. Mobile Hearing Aid Service is in-home hearing care across Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Niceville, Shalimar, Mary Esther, and Crestview. Call (850) 461-9900.