Whether you’re partial to main dishes or sides, holiday dinners are a delicious way to enjoy time with friends and family. For those with hearing loss, large dinners can turn into stressful experiences. Busy and crowded tables, complete with background music and tall flowers, can make understanding communication with hearing loss exceedingly tricky.
With some simple tips and tricks, you can accommodate your hearing loss to improve your holiday dinner experience.
Take Advantage of Technology
Approximately one in eight people in the United States aged 12 years and older have some degree of hearing loss. Taking advantage of technology is one great way to accommodate your hearing loss during your next holiday dinner. Two helpful technologies include:
- Speech-to-text apps. Speech-to-text apps are a handy tool to accommodate hearing loss. The apps work by collecting and transcribing the speech in your environment. A written transcript will help you understand words or phrases you may have mixed, allowing for easier communication.
- Hearing aids. Hearing aids collect and amplify speech while suppressing irrelevant background noise to provide you with a better understanding of the conversation around you. Not only will you be able to track holiday dinner conversations, but you’ll also be able to actively participate without exhausting excess mental energy.
Arrange the Atmosphere for Visibility
The atmosphere surrounding your next holiday dinner can significantly affect communication difficulty or ease. If people are turned away from you, or objects and low lighting impact your visibility, they may feel more challenging to understand. A couple of ways you can improve the visibility around your dinner table include:
- Round tables. Round tables help keep all members of your dinner party in view. When you can see the faces of your loved ones, you are more likely to understand what they say.
- Short flowers. A beautiful bouquet from Redding Florist is an excellent addition to the dinner table, but it can also increase communication difficulty. Moving flowers off the table or opting for a short bowl rather than a tall bouquet will prevent people from needing to talk over or around them.
Taking advantage of technology and improving the visibility in your environment can help improve understanding and communication and lead to a better holiday dinner experience. To learn more about managing your hearing loss this holiday season, contact Audiology Associates of Redding today to make an appointment with one of our specialists.