Survey finds ‘hostile hearing conditions’ make meetings inaccessible for deaf people

New survey research by Ideas for Ears suggests that hostile hearing conditions are making meetings and events inaccessible to large numbers of deaf people across the UK.

The research also suggests that the difficulties that people experience can often be fixed at little or no cost. 

The research, carried out in November 2017, reveals that people are feeling frustrated, excluded, stressed and embarrassed by the difficulties they experience.  They are missing important information, are not able to contribute as effectively as they could do, and consequently are being put off attending future meetings and events. 

The survey was completed by 362 people who have varying degrees of hearing loss and are aged from 18 to 80 plus.  The findings have implications for businesses and organisations of all sizes that run meetings and events for staff, customers and other stakeholders.  

Key findings include:

·         77% of respondents said they always or often experience difficulties in being able to hear and follow what is being said

·         81% said they were not able to contribute as effectively as they could have done

·         79% said they had missed important or interesting information

·         62% said they could not chat or network as they wanted

·         71% said they have come away feeling tired and 30% said they have been left with headaches

·         61% said it made them feel excluded or ignored, 56% said it made them feel stressed, and 51% said it made them feel embarrassed

·         50% said they have been put off attending similar meetings/events in the future

·         34% said they felt they had wasted their time in attending and 33% said it had made the meeting uninteresting or boring. 

Reasons given for the difficulties include:

·         Level of noise generated from chatter from other people (given by 78% of respondents)

·         Simultaneous discussions being held in the same room (76%)

·         Own hearing ability (72%)

·         People not speaking loudly or clearly enough (72%)

·         Acoustics of the room (72%)

·         Noise from equipment in the room (60%), from external sources (52%), from background music (42%)

·         Poor or no use of microphones (56%)

·         Lack of a hearing loop (54%)

·         Being too far from the speaker (54%)

·         Lack of written notes (39%)

·         Lack of quiet zones (36%)

·         Lighting not being suitable for lipreading (27%)

·         No BSL interpreter (8%)

Sally Shaw, director of Ideas for Ears, comments: “People with hearing loss represent one sixth of the population so they are a large minority group. Most of these individuals actually have the capability of hearing adequately, or even very well, so long as the barriers that cause difficulties are removed or reduced.  There is absolutely no need for so many to have such poor experiences on such a regular basis.

“The findings from the survey research illustrate that people very much want to attend and join in meetings and events but are struggling with the hostile hearing conditions. This is giving rise to a whole range of feelings, from hopelessness, helplessness and embarrassment to frustration and anger.

“For the majority of survey respondents, noise and poor acoustics are the main culprits. 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. Many of the difficulties are therefore quite mainstream and resolving them is likely to bring about improvements for everyone.

“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 many, the challenges are more ordinary. It is perhaps because they are so ordinary that they get overlooked.”

The data gathered was supplemented by more than 500 comments from respondents. Respondent comments include:

·         “In social situations it depends how comfortable I am with the people.  If I don’t know them well I don’t like to make a fuss and find it embarrassing.  If it’s people I know well I often feel like I’m wasting my time as nothing ever changes.  It’s not other people’s fault that I can’t hear, although they don’t do enough at times to include me, I just don’t think they understand.” 

·         “I may not hear very well, but I can see when people are exasperated with me. I want to contribute, but I feel stupid and excluded.” 

·         “Whilst I am assertive enough to check I have got information correctly, I can’t know what I don’t know, so I have definitely missed things, or embarrassingly misheard something and got things wrong. With a lot of people and noise it can be exhausting and very frustrating to try and follow what is going on.”

·         “Training and conference days are extremely tiring” 

·         “It is a struggle to participate and only about half of the meeting is understandable but one has to keep trying or hibernate!”

·         “People forget! A meeting group can totally agree that they should do x, y and z to help you, then forget at the next meeting. Takes repetition! 

·         “There is no point in having meetings if the participants cannot participate and contribute fully.   In people only hear part of what is said, then the meeting is not fully representative of the views of people there and organisers cannot be sure that the purpose of the meeting has been achieved.” 

·         “My experience leads me to believe I am probably the only deaf person in the south who asks for the loop system etc to be switched on, and most seem to have given up attending meetings and presentations and company AGMs.”

·         “This needs to be so much to the forefront that everyone automatically thinks of it and its importance – whether with normal/good hearing or without!”