Deaf Awareness Week 2026: “Right to understand – Together, we break barriers”
- DATE WRITTEN:
- READING TIME: 6 minutes
- AUTHORS: Sophie Walker (Assistant Community Engagement Officer)
This year’s Deaf Awareness Week looks to break down barriers that are holding back full accessibility for those with hearing loss. One of the biggest obstacles the deaf community often face is communication. Limited communication can lead to social isolation, reduced access to essential services, limited employment opportunities and restricted independence.
By raising awareness, teaching effective communication techniques and sharing personal experiences, we can begin to break down these barriers and start building a fully inclusive society where access to communication is recognised as the fundamental right it is, regardless of hearing ability.
Tips for effective communication
Everyone’s experience with hearing loss is different – no two people are the same. This means that every individual you meet with hearing loss will have different preferences and need different accommodations. So how do you know what will work?…
Ask
Just ask! Ask every individual you meet what their communication preferences are – they’ll tell you! Please don’t assume you know their preferences because your mother’s cousin’s uncle’s sister-in-law knows someone who’s deaf. Here are two questions that make a good start:
• Ask ‘How would you like me to get your attention?’
Getting someone’s attention is not as simple as just calling out their name. Try: waving, clicking lights, or knocking on a surface/stomping your foot to create vibrations. Do not tap them (without permission), grab them, shout, or stand waiting for their attention – these are important, as you don’t want to startle or upset anyone before you even get into a conversation.
• Ask ‘How is best to communicate with you?’
Methods of communication vary greatly so it’s important to know from the off what is most effective. Some people only use sign languages or written communication; others will rely on lipreading, spoken language or hearing devices; most will use a combination of everything – so get to know each individual’s ‘hierarchy of effectiveness’.
Do speak clearly and at a steady pace
People who rely on lipreading will be focusing on your mouth movements; if these are quick it can be really difficult to decipher them. Equally, if speech is intentionally exaggerated, your lip movements and mouth form will change and your words will no longer look how they should.
For people who use hearing devices, clear and steady speech will be easier to process than quick or loud speech. Loud speech and shouting distort sound, similarly to if you shout through a microphone; plus, it can be startling and distracting – not helpful for anyone!
Limit to one person speaking at any one time
Listening in loud settings or where several people are talking – like restaurants – can be tricky to follow when you can hear, let alone when you have hearing loss or are deaf. Multiple voices aren’t distinguishable through hearing devices and instead come through as unintelligible noise. Even if those people are all saying the same thing, or same word, for your benefit, the uniqueness of their individual voices creates an unknown sound that won’t be recognisable. One person speaking = best chance of following/understanding conversation.
An extension of this is to try to ensure the environment is quiet or has minimal background noise. Such sounds all build up to create noise that together is amplified through hearing aids. So, if you speak at a normal decibel level, these background sounds may match or exceed your voice, meaning you won’t be heard or understood.
Non-verbal tools and visual cues for communication
For a person with hearing loss, the use of hearing devices (hearings aids, cochlear implants, bone-anchored hearing aids, etc) can be helpful, but it’s important to know they don’t provide full access to sound and each come with their own set of limitations. People will often look for other indications to guide their understanding of a conversation. One way you can incorporate these is by using non-verbal and visual cues and clues. They are small nuances people with hearing loss look for, to help inform their understanding of, and to support their access to, a conversation.
1. Establish context
It helps to establish the context of the conversation you intend to have before you start talking. That way, people with hearing loss will recognise associated words more easily, making for a smoother conversation.
2. Hand gestures
When we talk about hand gestures we’re not talking about British Sign Language (BSL) and other sign languages. Hand gestures refer to common well-known hand signals that can inform someone of a situation, like putting your thumbs up for ‘good’ or ‘ready’ vice versa with thumbs down for ‘no’ or bad’. Other hand gestures include pointing to inform directional view or clapping for approval/appreciation.
Example: In archaeology, a common hand gestures is making a ‘T’ shape with both hands to signify ‘tea-break’ – this is an important one!
3. Facial expressions
Facial expressions are subconsciously used by almost everyone, makingthem universal and great cues for deaf people. Some people are better at reading these than others, but obvious facial expressions help inform the tone of a conversation. If something is positive, we may associate this with a smiley happy expression; if something is serious we may expect a stern brow. It’s also important to remember that some people have naturally expressive faces (fantastic!) and others show very little range visually at all (trickier!), so remembering to incorporate them is important and appreciated.
Example: If someone has just uncovered an amazing artefact, their face may appear wide with wonder or disbelief!
4. Lipreading/lip movements
For a lot of people with hearing loss, lipreading is a key form of communication. But it’s very important to remember that: not everyone can lipread, and those who can only understand around 30% of what is being said – it’s simply a tool to help aid communication. That being said, it’s still important to face an individual whilst speaking and to refrain from turning away mid conversation.
Lipreading is made exponentially easier if the individual has access to sound (in whatever form that may be); for those who hear nothing at all, lipreading can be a real challenge.
5. Sign Language
Sign language is an extremely useful tool to bridge the communication barrier for deaf people, incorporating all the visual cues we’ve mentioned up until now. However, not everyone knows sign language not even every person who has hearing loss knows sign language – lots of individuals become deaf later in life or don’t have access to the resources to learn sign language.
Try and learn a few basic signs that everyone can recognise and incorporate these into everyday life – this will help you remember them and hopefully want to learn more!
Example: Sometimes PPE or weather conditions can be incompatible with hearing devices, causing individuals who rely on them to go without sound. Knowing a few contextually relevant signs can help reduce their isolation and keep the individual situationally aware.
6. Written communication
Written communication is one of the best forms of non-verbal communication. However, it is time-consuming and sometimes not everyone writes down full conversations or has legible handwriting, which limits is use for accessibility. If you’re going to use written communication, ensure you write clearly and include everything you would normally say.
It’s good to prioritise written communication for important information– handwritten or in digital format – ideally on a platform that can be revisited, such as email or text message.
7. Speech-to-text technology
Speech-to-text technology is a very useful tool, though it can be limiting as many require a subscription or wi-fi to function. That aside, it can be applied to various devices such as smart phones and smart glasses, or used with video-pooling platforms, which makes it versatile.
Example: for use in video meetings that use teams or zoom
Things to avoid
1. Only giving verbal instructions
Many deaf people or people with hearing loss have no access to sound.
Example: In briefings with many people, sound will have to travel through all the people gathered and will be naturally decreased; depending on your position, it will be harder to reach a team member with hearing loss. Have written down all you intend to say and share with those who need it, after the briefing.
2. Saying ‘it doesn’t matter’
Deciding on behalf of someone else that information is unimportant immediately reduces accessibility, by restricting knowledge that would be available to the hearing people involved in a conversation. Allow the individual to decide what is or isn’t important. Even if the topic is not work-related, as this can further exclude individuals with hearing loss from social interactions and social atmosphere, leading to feelings of isolation. Let us decide whether it’s worth knowing, the same way a hearing person would.
3. Assuming every deaf person is the same
We’ve said it once briefly: deafness is a spectrum – everyone’s experience is unique and everyone will have different needs. Steve with moderate hearing loss will surely have different needs from Susan who is completely deaf and cannot use hearing devices.
Have the confidence to ask each individual their preferences and establish a plan for effective communication. This can be intimidating, but could be the difference between an inclusive, supportive environment and one where those with hearing loss feel left out and isolated.
4. Judging based on previous ability
Hearing quality varies day-to-day, so it’s important to regularly reestablish the needs of those with hearing loss. Unlike for eyesight, there is no ‘hearing prescription’, so listening fatigue and cognitive exhaustion are common side effects for those living with deafness or hearing loss, and they additionally affect hearing ability over the course of a day. Saying things like ‘oh you heard me fine earlier’ or ‘I think you’re just being selective’ are largely unhelpful and invalid!
Even if people choose to use hearing devices to aid their sound access, they will need hearing breaks to not overload their brains. Deaf people cannot always filter out the sounds our brains would usually and naturally deem unnecessary (such as the sound of hair moving or the air-conditioning unit in an office), so these sounds can overwhelm and cause sensory distress. In addition, hearing devices are often unreliable, meaning alternative communication techniques will sometimes need to be utilised.
I hope this article has been useful and you learned something new about deafness and hearing loss. Below are some recommended online resources, to further aid your awareness and improve your understanding of deafness and hearing loss.
