How can I manage a series of meetings where some participants will have hearing loss?

This page is for anyone who runs a group which meets on a regular basis to hear talks. Often such group leaders are retired professionals who have accumulated a great deal of knowledge and are prepared to give their time to share it. They are not trained teachers. Where the group has a more or less fixed membership over a number of weeks, its members, too, are likely to be retired, and many will have some degree of hearing loss. You may realise that this description fits a group leader of the international U3A movement, but if you do not know of the U3A, no matter. The page should also be helpful if you run any group which meets together over an extended period. Incidentally, though, I have formulated the advice from my experience as a U3A member with hearing loss.

You can't help if you don't know

You are giving up your time and you want everyone in the group to enjoy it and find the meetings helpful. If someone has hearing or sight loss or any other disability, you want to help them - but if it is invisible you can't be expected to discern it without being told. So here is my first piece of advice:

• At the outset, at the first meeting of the group, include in your introductory remarks, that if anyone has hearing loss or sight loss or any other disability, could they please let you know in the break or at some other convenient time, because they are a number of ways that you can help.

Of course not everyone with hearing loss will admit it because sadly the signs of disability can look so similar to signs of stupidity, but you will have tried, and some people may admit it.

I always admit it because my needs are fairly severe. Actually, though, it is not quite true that I always admit it, because group leaders seldom ask. I have to make it known to them usually in advance of joining. I say that I am unsure if I will be able to cope in the meetings because of my hearing loss and ask if it would be possible to attend the first meeting on a trial basis. No group leader has yet refused. Then I arrive early for the first meeting to remind the group leader of who I am and my hearing loss and ask where the speaker will be speaking from so that I can choose a seat as close as possible. Again, no group leader has ever refused or been anything but helpful, and I have never yet had to leave a group because of not being able to hear the speaker.

Simple ways you can help a group member with hearing loss

• Without making a big thing of it, ask the individual concerned if there is a particular seat where they could hear best, then, if possible, reserve it for them in future meetings.

For example, although the hearing in both my ears is poor, one ear is better than the other, so I like to sit as close as is reasonable to the speaker but to one side, so that my better ear is towards the speaker.

For some time, I used to arrive early at meetings, to occupy 'my seat'. Then one day the group leader said to me that I needn't arrive so early because everyone knew that this seat was Pat's and anyway she would make sure that no-one else sat in it.

• Ask group members to let you know if they don't hear.

If you say this, you will have done what you can, but again most people who don't hear won't admit it for the reasons outlined above. I let them know no more than a few times in any one meeting. If it doesn't work by then, it never will. I just put up with it.

• Don't start a talk by shouting "Can you hear me at the back?", then when those with good hearing shout "yes", drop your voice back to something quieter.

This is surprisingly common, but of course you wouldn't do it! Would you?

• Project your voice when you speak to the group.

Projecting your voice is not the same as shouting. If necessary, ask around for advice on voice projection.

• When someone from the back of the room asks a question or makes a comment, someone with hearing loss won't hear it, as in fact will a lot of other people! So either repeat it or make it clear from your response what the question was.

With the best will in the world, this is easier said than done because it is natural to forget, and anyway, you don't want an extra burden on your mind when you are running a session. However you may like to be aware of the problem. As a member of the audience sitting in my optimal seat, it is a problem that I continue to face. Essentially I just put up with it because I don't want to disrupt proceedings by seeming to keep complaining.

• Similarly, don't have a private conversation with someone in the front row. Be inclusive and share the issue or ask the person with the issues to turn round and share them with the audience.

Problems during breaks

My worst experiences are before the meeting starts and in refreshment breaks when everyone is talking together. The background noise is horrendous for anyone with hearing loss. I usually go outside when I can or stand at the extreme edge of the group. I feel isolated and embarrassed, and I worry that I must seem unsociable. On more than one occasion this has been my reason for leaving a group.

However, you as a group leader can help:

If you notice that someone looks isolated during a break and if you know one or more other group members well enough, ask them to take the isolated person under their wing. If they do this, the isolated person will surely do their part in helping a conversation along.

Support from technology

The very best support for anyone with hearing loss is if the room has a properly working loop system which is turned on. This is explained on the page about loop systems, but it is worth stressing that where the system is good, no-one else, including the person doing the speaking need even know that the loop system is on or even exists. The person speaking does, though, have to stand in one place close to where the microphone is hidden.

However, it is more than likely that your group will not be in a room with a working loop system. If so, there are relatively cheap portable voice amplifiers that can be used. They consist of a very small loudspeaker and microphone on a headset. They are charged in advance, so there are no trailing leads. We have been trialling them at our U3A and they are proving very useful indeed in lecture style formats. Where they cannot help is where the group is run as spontaneous discussion or where there are numerous contributions from the floor, as it is not realistic to keep passing round the microphone.

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Disclaimer: The information on this site is for a lay audience and I cannot be responsible for errors or omissions. The views, strategies, advice and suggestions etc are based on my personal experience and are not necessarily appropriate for anyone else. They should, hopefully, stimulate individuals to develop their own strategies.