#actuallyHOH

[wheelie-sick]

please remember that super hearing is not the default for autistic people.

autistic people are 10 times more likely to have hearing loss than allistic people! so many of us aren't able to hear the lights or the fridge. we're often sensory seeking for sounds because we're deprived of them. even when we are sensory avoidant for sounds our sensory avoidance frequently presents differently

hearing is not the default for autism

super hearing is not a universal autism experience

please remember deaf/hard of hearing autistics

[not-that-debonair]

I know it’s not the biggest thing but why is it so hard for people to grasp what the purpose of subtitles is cause I am so sick of being spoiled by them revealing characters’s names/purpose before the dialogue does.

[hard-of-death]

15 years later and I still don't understand why you can put advertisements on fucking captions like ??? I'm deaf I want to know what is being said not buy ur damn ass product !!!

People talk about capitalism hell as if it wasn't here but fuck damn if it isn't here already for us

[mxoleander]

if you reblog a video and add "unmute!" or something similar, i'm putting you under a mummy's curse until you add captions

[violetstarr24]

hate when im doing a hearing test and my tinnitus copies the beeping noises. bITCH STOP SABOTAGING ME

[frozenflvrries]

Same here😊

Access for DeafBlind

As a person who has low vision, residual hearing… I cannot use a screen reader. I don’t know braille. I use a magnification device on my computer, enlarge text on my phone. 

I love the iPhone, it is accessible. To the most part. Except for me, I cannot access the Emoji’s. Voiceover, doesn’t do much. Magnification it only does so much and I am a fast typer/texter, my patience runs out searching for the ‘right’ emoji (after 5 minutes of searching). If it’s not my patience, it’s my vision that goes out and becomes exhausted searching (so close to the screen). 

I wish the Emoji’s could be enlarged… just like the text can. It’s a win-lose situation. But at least, I have access to online, internet and can text!

[bodhrancomedy]

More tips on hearing aids and writing them!

[trabandovidas]

I love when people mistakes the "I love you" ASL sign (🤟) for the "Devil horns" gesture (🤘)

Like hell yeah dude you are so tough and edgy while signing I love you, I love you too, whatever 🤟💜

[raccooninapartyhat]

hearing people will never understand how frustrating and sometimes depressing it is for me to hear the phrase "never mind"

[frozenflvrries]

I got recently diagnosed with mild bilateral sensorineural hearing loss.. I’m HoH!

are there just not many Deaf people on here? most of the people i've seen in the deaf/hoh tags aren't Deaf, at least in the few years i've been following the tags

[wheelie-sick]

happy deaf month to all the deafies who aren't palatable to hearing people!!! happy deaf month to every deaf person who:

refuses to speak for hearing people and only signs

prefers signing to speaking

refuses to wear hearing aids or cochlear implants

refuses to engage with people who aren't willing to accommodate them

doesn't "try their hardest" to fit in with the hearing world

doesn't care to fit into the hearing world and prefers the Deaf world

doesn't tone down their bluntness for hearing people

you are wonderful and ILY 🤟

[cannabiscomrade]

You can tell me to stop buying Apple products when Samsung and other brands improve their HOH/Deaf accessibility features

Either way though I shouldn’t be tethered to one brand just because the accessibility market happens to be better with one product; there should be a standard of production when it comes to accessibility features

[hard-of-death]

There are truly no words to describe how much I fucking despise how the only posts about D/deaf and HoH people that get any actual recognition are made by... hearing fucking people

And in most of the cases, hearing people with no relation to the Deaf community, or that held audits and ableist ideology very tight to they heart and do not speaking at all for us

And is not because we are not vocal! We are, our voices are just being ignored and drowned under the voices of hearing people and is just. so. fucking. tiring

[inthewaytoamultilinguallife]

When people think about Sign Languages (SL) they tend to think about hands. Some, with slightly more knowledge, will be acquainted with the infamous phrase “facial expression is important/part of a SL grammar”

However, i have often found that most people don’t actually know what this actually refers to, or the whole story behind it, so let’s talk a little about it:

for starters, each individual sign (in all sign languages) has several components. The amount recognized have changed during the time with more research, but nowadays the ones (most) recognized are, in no particular order:

Handshape: It is, as the name says, the shape of the hand, that’s it: the exact position and shape each finger takes.

The set of handshapes a sign language has is fixed, and varies from language to language, even if some handshapes may be included in several languages at the same time. The handshapes of a sign language does not correspond to its signed alphabet, and there is also no correspondence of one (1) handshape = one (1) sign. Likewise, a handshape does not equal a meaning or significance: the handshape is sorely a set of hand positions the signing person has available to create new signs and use the already settled signs, and therefore just one of several components of the sign. 

A slight change in handshape can result in a different meaning that the one intended, or a meaningless gesture, in the same way that a sound unit changed in one word results in a different meaning  (for example "bay" to "buy" in English, or “peso” and “beso” in Spanish),  but the handshape on itself does not carry the meaning

Movement: how your hand(s) moves. If the handshape goes upward or downward, backwards or forward, if it moves in a diagonally, or in a wave, in zigzag, etc.

Several signs include one movement, but they can include more. Likewise, a sign will be able to (even if it is not always the case) change handshape while it’s moving, therefore starting in one handshape, adapting another one while it is moving, and finishing in another one. These are sometimes called transitional handshapes  

There are others components that are recognized as separated from “movement” only by some linguists and depending on the signed language at hand, such as the speed of the sign, the direction of the movement or repetition (or lack of) of the movement. These, however, often time are just included under “movement”, even if this sometimes amplifies the description of each possible movement to a very great amount  

Location: this is where your hand is located, say, in the centre of your forehead, in the air above your head, on the chest to the left, etc.

Location can be very precise and detailed sometimes, meaning that sometimes signs will have to be signed in an exact place of the body or face, such as “right in the middle of the place between the nose and the mouth” and not just a more general “above the mouth”.  However, all signs have a certain range of “off and on” with its location: say, if the sign is located in the lower part of the ear, making it slightly above with not render it meaningless. Altering its position to the upper part, however, or to the cheek, for example, will. Sometimes it can create confusion if you deviate a little too much, too, just as slightly mispronouncing a letter in a word will do 

And once again, while changing the location changes the sign we are signing, and therefore the meaning, location doesn't have its independent meaning. It is part of the sign: we are not exactly changing meaning when changing the location, but changing the sign that we are making as we change its components

Palm orientation: the orientation of the hand or palm is different to the location. Location is about where does the hand locate in the space regarding the body, the orientation of the palm is about if the aforementioned is upturned or downturned, facing you, facing away from you, etc.

Two or more signs can have the exact same handshape, movement, location and non manual features between each other, and yet, differ in the palm orientation, and be, just for that, different signs. This is the case, for example, with the signs “Gym” and “niece/nephew” in Uruguayan sign language (LSU): they are both made with the five fingers extended and pressed together, slightly tapping twice the upper part of the chest with a neutral face expression, but “gym” is made with the palm facing the floor, and “niece/nephew” facing the sky/roof 

They only differ in the orientation of the palm, but they are different signs because of that

Non-manual signal/marker/features: these are the components to the sign that aren’t located in the hands. They include mouth shape, eye movement, body shifting, head tilting, shoulder movement, etc.

While non-manual signals (NMS) can be used to modify verbs, adjectives etc, and convey grammatical information such as topicalization, sentence types (wh-question, rh-question, yes/no question, etc.), and much more, therefore being important for the grammar of the language, NMS are often time part of the component of the sign itself too. “Always part of”, actually, if we accept the concept of “neutral/default NMS” as some linguists do. 

This means that, in order to be produced correctly, and be understood correctly, a sign demands a certain NMS to be produced with. 

For example, the sign “Fat” in LSU is made out of five fingers extended and slightly curved, like holding an invisible ball, with each palm facing the other. It’s located in front of the chest, with a movement that separates the hands away from the chest, towards each side. But only this (the specific handshape, palm orientation, location and movement) is not enough. To properly sign “Fat”, you need to inflate your cheeks in a quick motion, and slightly curve your back as you rise your shoulders. 

These NMSs described above are not part of the grammar of a sentence per se, they are part of the sign itself and without them, you are not signing “Fat”, you are making gestures, that might or might not have another meaning (or a meaning altogether) depending on each particular case 

So yeah, sign languages are not just about hands and handshapes

SIGN LANGUAGES ARE NOT JUST ABOUT HANDS AND HANDSHAPES SIGN LANGUAGES ARE NOT JUST ABOUT HANDS AND HANDSHAPES SIGN LANGUAGES ARE NOT JUST ABOUT HANDS AND HANDSHAPES

[hohdeaf-headcanons]

Fellow hearing aid wearers i have a question for ye

What kind of container do you put your hearing aids in

Where is said container

How often do they go into a dehumidifier

[not-that-debonair]

Precariously balancing my earphone on the microphone of my hearing aid to access ✨Music Deluxe (tm)✨