General Hearing Tactics
- Avoid talking to people in a noisy environment as the noise may mask out the speech you want to hear
- Try to hold important conversations in a relatively quiet environment
- Try not to stand too far away from the speaker as you may miss out on the reception of the higher frequency speech signals
- Position yourself so as to get a clear, well-lit and unobstructed view of the speaker's face
- Seat yourself across the speaker rather than next to him so you can see him better or with your aided ear close to the speaker
- Look directly at the person while speaking as this provides the best reception of voice and that you can use any visual cues you may need for discrimination
- Ask the person to speak clearly with no exaggeration
- Ask the speaker to repeat or rephrase if you cannot make out what he says. In general, discrimination difficulties increase as your hearing loss becomes more severe
