Liam O’Dell: New survey explores the accessibility of meetings for those with a hearing loss

A survey of 362 people with varying levels of hearing loss has found that 77% always or often experience difficulties in following or hearing what is being said during meetings or events.

The study, conducted by social enterprise company Ideas for Ears, also revealed that 79% of respondents felt they had missed ‘important or interesting information’ that was being discussed.

In response to the data, Janis McDonald, Chief Officer of the Scottish Council on Deafness (SCoD) said: “The findings highlight just how widespread poor experiences are.

“It also illustrates how crucial it is for organisations to get the basics right, which includes people speaking clearly and making sure that their faces can be seen and meeting environments having suitable lighting, acoustics and listening equipment. The solutions are generally very cost effective.”

In addition to the study exploring how those with hearing loss felt during meetings, they also found that noise levels generated by other people chatting was the top reason given for their difficulty (78%).

The individual’s own hearing ability was the third highest answer at 72%, which just four points below the second highest answer of ‘simultaneous discussions being held in the same room’.

Sally Shaw, director of Ideas for Ears, said: “The noise generated by the babble of conversation is especially difficult.

“We clearly do not want to stop people talking, but we do need to start seeing much better management of noise and acoustics by venues and facility managers and building designers.

“Other difficulties include people not speaking clearly, microphones not being used when they should be, and words and information that are easy to mishear or misunderstand not being written down.

Ms Shaw then went on to add that many of the difficulties are ‘quite mainstream’, and said that resolving these problems ‘is likely to bring about improvements for everyone’.

She said: “For some people, of course, the barriers are caused by lack of text transcription or lack of sign language provision.

“Their needs should never be neglected but, equally, it should be recognised that for the majority, the challenges are more ordinary.

“It is perhaps because they are so ordinary that they get overlooked.”

More information about the research – including an online version of the report – can be found on the Ideas for Ears website.