The pandemic has made the hard of hearing community so much more isolated. Deafness is commonly known as an invisible disability. Many people with hearing issues have struggled much more than others with the pandemic due to the unavoidable necessity of wearing masks.
Teachers at Saint Andrew’s are struggling too. Wesley Saylor, the French teacher at SA, is hard of hearing. He finds helping students with pronunciation extremely difficult.
“I teach a foreign language. It makes it that much harder because everyone is still learning pronunciation.” Saylor says. “They are messing up pronunciation and I might not even notice it.”
Saylor opens up about his general struggles with the pandemic and the mask mandates.
“I certainly relied on reading lips to be able to hear people talk,” Saylor says. “Having people covering their mouths with masks has been extremely difficult for me.”
Since masks muffle the sound of a voice, asking someone to repeat themselves has become a very common action for Saylor. Having read lips his entire life, it is hard for him to understand people without being able to see them.
“It’s just been really difficult to hear everyone when they talk,” Saylor says. “Having to ask someone to repeat themselves over and over after a while becomes really frustrating to both myself and the person I’m speaking to.”
Buying clear masks can go a long way to help someone who needs to be able to read lips in order to understand a person who is speaking. Clear masks have become popular amongst the hard of hearing community. Many online retailers are selling clear masks, some for around $10.
Google meet calls have been increasingly hard for Saylor as well.
“When there is any hint of technical difficulties, I lose most of what is being said – I feel like that is shared by most people,” Saylor says. “I also struggle with the digital sound – enunciation is so important for me and on a regular basis, people don’t generally think about enunciating so when they are talking and it turns out digitally, I struggle with that too.”
The pandemic is making it just that much harder for those who struggle already in their daily lives. However, Saylor believes that protecting others and your loved ones is just as important as protecting yourself.
“ Having patience during this time is so important. Absolutely nothing at all is worth the risk.”