A few years ago I read Deaf
Sentence by David Lodge, a comic novel in which the central character,
Desmond Bates, suffers from high frequency deafness. It struck a chord with me
because the symptoms that the Bates character suffers (as does the author
himself) are familiar to me.
High frequency deafness can be described as “consonant
deafness.” It is exacerbated in noisy environments and sufferers have particular
difficulty in hearing women and children, whose voices tend to be higher
pitched than men’s. My experience is that the problem still exists when it is a
man speaking; environment is the key factor, certain environments exacerbate
the problem. These are most commonly establishments where the floors are wooden
or concrete rather than carpeted; where the walls are bare stone or glass
rather than wallpapered; where the furniture is metallic rather than
upholstered. The level of ambient noise is also a factor. Obviously loud music
is a problem, but even with no music at all the general hubbub of conversation,
reverberating off glass walls, stone floors and metal furniture creates a
severe obstacle to me understanding what anyone is saying.
To give you an example of how conversation can seem to those
suffering high frequency deafness, imagine a sentence with all the vowels
removed, say “T_m_rr_w _s g_ _ ng t_ b_
m_stly s_nny”[1]
and you can decipher it with little effort. Now imagine all the consonants
removed instead. The same sentence becomes “_o_ _ o_ i_
_oi_ _ _o _e _o
_ _ _ _ _u_ _ _” which I defy you to
translate into anything meaningful. When spoken, a sentence where the listener
cannot hear the consonants becomes just a jumble of sounds.
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| Perhaps I should invest in one of these? |
For those who suffer high frequency, or consonant deafness,
a common complaint is “I can hear the words, I just can’t understand them.” I
know this feeling well. There I am, listening intently to what someone is
saying and all of a sudden they appear to have started to talk gibberish. The
reason for this is that the words my ears are hearing have become muddled; my
brain decides upon the only logical words they must have used and I am left
wondering why the speaker would possibly want to take an elephant for a walk to
the park when in actual fact they have just told me that their eldest child has
gained a place at university.
David Lodge has said of his deafness that “it's a comic
infirmity as opposed to blindness which is a tragic infirmity" and it is
certainly true that while no one would ever make jokes about someone’s
blindness, a person’s deafness, whether it is acute or minor, is often seen as
fair game for humour, and yes, I have done it myself. Most of us will be
familiar with the probably apocryphal story of the military message which,
having passed through a number of radio relays, became transmogrified from
“Send reinforcements, we’re going to advance,” into “Send three and fourpence,
we’re going to a dance.” Well, imagine the passage of one person’s remark to
the brain of the listener in a similar sense, i.e. passing through a number of
relay stations, and it is easy to see how the message becomes garbled.
Mishearing what another person is saying can lead to
misunderstandings of a comic or more serious nature, particularly if the hearer
responds to what they thought they
heard with an entirely inappropriate remark or answer that deeply offends the
other person. This type of thing is frequently used as a comic device and will
often crop up in a sketch in which a man ends up having his face slapped by a
woman; a similar situation in real-life might have much more dire consequences!
I have been in situations where I have answered what I thought
was said rather than what was actually said and only realise that my answer or
comment makes no sense in the context of the conversation when the other party
makes a face that instantly conveys their puzzlement. Often at this point they
will depart to seek conversation with someone who can understand what they are
saying.
Because high frequency hearing loss makes it hard for
sufferers to hear and understand, and because some environments exaggerate the
problem, it is easy and common for sufferers to give up, I know I have. I have
often been at social gatherings where, no matter how hard I try, I do not
understand more than about ten percent of what is being said to me. The effort
of struggling to understand what is being said is tiring, frustrating and
ultimately can lead to sufferers withdrawing from such situations, standing
forlornly on the fringes of groups of happily chatting people. In many cases
people decide not to bother going to these events in the first place because
they know exactly what the experience will be.
I can recall many an evening that has started out as a
potentially enjoyable social gathering descending into frustration as it progresses
and the noise level increases, and with it difficulty in understanding
conversations. However, even away from social situations, in the relative peace
of my own home, I often have difficulty in hearing what people are saying. Or
more accurately in understanding what they are saying. Now the sceptics among you
may say that this is because I am not paying attention and sometimes that may
be true, but even when I am paying attention I may simply not comprehend the
words being used; by the time they get to my brain they have become altered in
meaning at best and become nonsense at worst, hence misunderstandings occur.
There are a few techniques that speakers can use to help the
consonant deafness sufferer. I find it much easier to understand what is being
said if I can see the speaker’s lips moving.
If I say I didn’t understand or didn’t hear clearly, it can
be useful if the speaker rephrases rather than simply repeats what they
originally said. Perhaps most usefully and most crucially, I find it much
easier to understand what is being said if the topic is introduced and then the
critical question is asked, or the important statement is made.
For example, I may be all at sea with a question like “What
time is the show?” which I am just as likely to hear as “Is it going to snow?” even though it might be the height of summer
and being no prospect of snow, but if someone were to say, “That show we are
going to on Saturday; what time does it start?” there is much more likelihood
of me getting to grips with what I am being asked. If I am taken by surprise by
the question my mind jumps to the first conclusion it reaches about what has
been said (and invariably this is wrong), resulting in a frustrating
miscommunication.
David Lodge may have used high frequency deafness to comic
effect in his book, but sufferers will often be at a loss to see the funny side
of the problem in real life; if you meet someone who is afflicted in this way
please try to be sympathetic, it really is a most aggravating condition.
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