Communication is important, now more than ever, as information about COVID-19 is ever-changing. Communication challenges prompted by the virus can lead to anxiety, isolation and misinformation for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
That’s especially true for those who live in states where face masks are required in most public settings. The masks cover people’s faces from the nose down, making it nearly impossible for deaf people to read lips or understand facial expressions.
In Governor Dewine’s new mask order for Montgomery County, there is an exception in the order for when people need to communicate with people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
“There’s such a wide range of ways to communicate in the deaf community. No two deaf people are the same,” Chief Operating Officer for the Deaf Community Resource Center, Paula Vaught said. “They can communicate with speech, they can communicate with sign, or it may be a combination of sign or speech, so its just really hard.”
“With the masks on now, for a person who is profoundly deaf, most of the time they don’t even know when you are talking to them when you have a mask on,” Vaught said. “It’s not just that they can’t lip read, they don’t even know you’re talking to them.”
Being flexible is important to keep in mind when communicating with someone who is deaf or hard of hearing.
“The biggest thing is eye contact I think and just being flexible,” Vaught said. “Just remembering that you need to be a little more flexible, it’s not everything by the rules and being flexible enough to write a note, find something be willing to mime something out, you know add a few gestures to what you’re saying.”
“In the community, we have a lady that has made us some masks with the clear front on them and so when people ask for them, we put them on or use those with people who definitely depend on lip-reading,” Vaught said.
The Deaf Community Resource Center in Dayton aims to serve the needs of the deaf community through all phases of life by providing advocacy, day to day support and education for both the deaf and hard of hearing individuals and those who interact with them.
For more information, go to DCRC’s website.
