League Helps Deaf Come Out Of "Silent World”

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29146, 5 March 1960, Page 11

League Helps Deaf Come Out Of "Silent World”

■ “You’ve got to bulldoze them | in” the president of the New (Zealand League for the Hard of (Hearing (Dr J. Aitken Paterson) (told members of the Christchurch j branch, referring to reticent hard of hearing folk who hesitated to | become members | Dr Paterson who is on a goodiwill tour of all branches in New Zealand, will open new branches at Greymouth, Blenheim, Balclutha and Gore. Many of the hard of hearing were shy and diffident about seeking help. The league could do much to bring them out of their silent world, prevent their withdrawal and, through lip-reading classes and social contact, bring them back into society, he explained. I The league was progressing well and it was his hope that when he left the South Island not a town of more than 500 would be without a branch. There were 100,000 adults in New Zealand with some loss of hearing, he said, and about half of these required some assistance to hear normal conversation. The membership too of persons with normal hearing was necessary to encourage and support the league. Assistance to Deaf Apart from lip-reading classes which were invaluable for the hard of hearing because deafness was usually progressive, the league could do much to help deaf persons to choose the correct type of hearing aid and learn its proper use, Dr Paterson said. It often took great preseverence to master an aid and accustom the wearer to disregard extraneous noises and concentrate on voices. “After all we know that those with normal hearing take extraneous noises in their stride in daily conversation the hard of hearing must learn to do this too,” he emphasised. The Govvernment paid the salary of lipreading tutors and contributed towards the cost of hearing aids

and it was important for the hard of hearing to co-operate and do something to help themselves. Lip-reading Important Mrs B. M. Wells, organising teacher for the league, emphasised the importance of young people who were hard of hearing taking advantage of lip-reading classes. There was often the mistaken idea, she said, that because the loss was usually less in the younger person they failed to realise the need for learning to lip read. Even when there was a successful operation surgeons advised adherance to the practice of lip-reading because it was so much easier for youth to perfect it and when there was a hearing weakness there was not much chance of improvement as the person grew older. “Don’t wait until you are in your 60’s or 70’s but take the attitude that you will, like the boy scouts, be prepared” she advised. This was not to say that lipreading could not be learned at any age but as in all study it was easier for the young to master. Perfection in lip-reading enabled the young to go out into the world and mix with confidence with persons of normal hearing. As the disability progressed so a hearing aid became less effective and lip-reading more valuable.