1. All deaf people sign:
2. A hearing aid makes you hear normally, all deaf people have one (or a Cochlear Implant – CI).
3.  The majority of deaf people cannot speak or speak funny
4. A cochlear implant restores hearing
5. All deaf people lipread
6. All deaf people use Interpreters
7. There are no deafblind people round here
8. Deafblind people can’t get out and about
9. Deafblind people cannot communicate, deafblindness means you cannot see or hear at all
10. Presbyacusis only affects older people
11. All deaf people can use a telephone with a hearing aid or cochlear implant
12. A Loop system is suitable for all deaf people who do not sign
13. Hearing dogs can respond to all noises
14. HOH people are all old
15. HOH people do not have the same problems as deaf people
16. Deaf people will follow you better if you shout
17. I don’t need to make my business accessible – I have no deaf customers
18. Deaf people don’t want to talk to me, I couldn’t communicate with them anyway, I would have to learn BSL to do so.
19. A hearing aid user or a CI user can hear me if I shout their name across a crowded room
20. Deaf people only hear (or see)  what they want to” hear”, I think they’re pretending not to understand me
21.  You must use simple English when talking to a deaf person
22.  A sign language user cannot read subtitles
23.  Deafblind people cannot go out by themselves
24.  Deaf people do not lose any more hearing
25.  Deaf people are not allowed to drive
26.  Deaf people are not as intelligent as hearing people
27.  All deaf people want to be hearing
28. Most deaf people have deaf parents
29. All deaf people can communicate with each other
30. All deaf people understand deaf culture
31.  BSL (British Sign language) is the same as ASL (American Sign Language) and AUSLAN (Australian Sign Language).
32. BSL is a collection of gestures and similar to mime
33. BSL users do not have Cochlear Implants
34. Deaf people bring their own interpreters with them
35. Deafness won’t happen to me.

With thanks to our trainer Suzie Jones for this post.

We have much pleasure in sending you details of a further visit to Bletchley Park at the end of June. We do hope this date will offer you the chance to join our group visit to this historic site and find out about the house and family as well as the enormous hard work and struggle that went on here to break codes, especially the Enigma Code, during WW2.

We are sending this notice and booking form to all those who were too late to book places last time or were unable to manage the date of that visit. If you know others who might like to join this visit please do let them know about it.

As with the last visit, we will be accompanied by two NADP Registered Lipspeakers and will be guided around the site by a Bletchley Park Guide. The tour lasts about an hour and you will have plenty of time to visit the whole site, inside and out, after the tour. There is also a small cafe for hot and cold refreshments.

The entrance fee for this group visit includes parking and staff at the entrance gate will direct you. Please see attached information sheet.

Please be sure to make out your cheques to NADP and not to Lynne Dubin! Then send the booking form and cheque to Lynne at her Oxford address. The full details are on the form.

We look forward to receiving your booking and will then send out a ‘ticket’ for the day. Please do not hesitate to be in touch if you have any queries.

with best wishes

Lynne and Sara

Lynne Dubin and Sara Scanlon
NRCPD Registered Lipspeakers
NADP Rawson Bequest Programme Organisers

Visit and Guided Tour of Bletchley Park

NADP Bletchley Park BOOKING FORM

Please find attached a booking form for our next Walks & Talks walk, this time around Bayswater – and the northern end of Hyde Park for those who came on our last walk through Kensington Gardens.

While we write to you today Lynne is listening to a Bach marathon event broadcast live from the wonderful Albert Hall, that we admired on our last walk, and hoping that the May walk will be in much drier and warmer weather.

Do come and find out from Diane all about the northern end of Hyde Park and the district surrounding it. It seems there is quite a different flavour to this part of Town!

And while we write about our Walk we also want to alert you to the next NADP Rawson Bequest event which takes place the weekend before our walk – Saturday, 11th May will be a visit to Knole House and Park at Sevenoaks in Kent, in care of the National Trust. This includes a guided tour of the unique and historic house and after lunch a half hour guided ranger walk of the Deer Park.

We think this day offers something for everyone and look forward to sharing the visit with many of you. Watch out for a special posting of information and booking forms for this in the next few days.

Meantime, we look forward to receiving your booking forms for our Bayswater walk and seeing you on the day.

all good wishes

Lynne and Diana

Lynne Dubin and Diana Barimore
NTCPD Registered Lipspeakers

Hangings, Horsemen Bayswater BOOKING FORM

We are very pleased to be inviting you to book for our first visit to a National Trust property.

Our programme organisers, Lynne Dubin and Sara Scanlon, have worked with the Education Officer at Knole House and Deer Park to provide an accessible and enjoyable day out at this very old and beautiful property. We have designed appropriate guided tours of both the house and deer park while the National Trust has offered us a very generous group rate for this first visit. In exchange they would appreciate our help by giving them detailed feedback on how successful the guided tour of the house was for each of us.

NADP want to encourage all the property managers of the places we visit to learn from their experience of providing their attractions to deaf and hard of hearing people. They can only do that if we tell them what was good for us and where and how perhaps they could improve their access. They need our firsthand experience. Please be generous in giving them the written feedback they will ask for on the day. They will also ask us to sign a consent form for general photography that they might take in order to promote their future programme of events for special groups.

As we will be visiting an old and fragile house and park we must observe certain general restrictions and you will find them on the attached information sheet, along with a timetable for the day and a booking form. We also attach National Trust pdf files about Knole House and Deer Park. As we are visiting on a Saturday the garden will not be open, but it will be on future weekday visits we may want to make on our own later in the summer.

Car parking is free for all NT members, so if some of you are able to offer lifts and can double up with non-National Trust members none of you will be charged the usual £4 car parking fee for non members! Travel details via train and bus can be found on the NT leaflet and via their website.

Contact us to book a place info@121captions.com

Lynne Dubin and Sara Scanlon

NRCPD Registered Lipspeakers

NADP Rawson Bequest Programme Organisers

Guided day at Knole House

Knole House BOOKING FORM

Knole House welcome leaflet

Knole what’s on leaflet

In January I started training for this year’s London Marathon. I surprised everyone as I was going to run with only 3 months training behind me. Normally, you need 6 months. I’ve never run a race before. I wanted to raise funds for Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, in memory of my hearing dog Smudge. My training regime was 2 or 3 sessions a week on the gym treadmill, with the occasional street running thrown in with a local runner’s club, and a Saturday personal trainer workout followed by a martial arts class with Darren of Meade TKD. Darren is blind and a 3rd dan black belt – he believes that nothing is impossible – which is a great attitude to have. Every trainer should have this attitude! I didn’t do any long runs as I was so bored with running on my own that I just couldn’t face it, and instead I put in lots of short runs on the treadmill. My muscles were so tight that I got tendonitis in my right leg, pulling my kneecap off to one side. I treated this with visits to a physio and sports massage, and using a foam roller. My tip: start using a foam roller daily when you start training, don’t wait until you are in pain!

I was nervous about the race and had a bad tum for a week running up to it, apparently this is normal. I’d had issues with getting the right pair of trainers and had 3 pairs that gave me pins and needles, so in desperation I bought a pair a whole size bigger on the day I picked up my runners number, a few days before the race. I had a 2 hour massage at Venus Inspired in Chigwell, and a facial which was just wonderful, the massage left me with a very sore back (which was better by race day) and the facial was so relaxing I almost fell asleep. Lovely!

On race day it was scorching hot. I stuck plasters on sensitive bits and wrapped plasters around my waist, where the waistband of my trousers might rub. I packed my iPod with neckloop, iPhone with direct audio connect leads, and a book (just kidding). I started off the race by listening to music on my iPhone, this was the first time I had used a neckloop and it worked very well with an activated T-coil program on my cochlear processor.

Start line – It took 20 minutes to get to the actual start line as I was in group 9, right at the back of the 35,000-strong crowd. It was a party atmosphere and I had a really good feeling about this race.

Start line, Greenwich

Miles 1-7 – I had an annoying stitch for the first 5 miles and ran through that. My shoulders were very sore, they felt as if I was running with them around my ears (I probably was!). I spotted a friend Jamie standing at the roadside at mile 5 and it was lovely to get a supportive hug. It was really quite weird running around my old neighbourhood in Greenwich.

My longest run to date has been 7 miles and at the 7 mile marker, I was surprised that I could just keep going, my body did what I wanted it to do and kept moving forward. I had warmed up now and was running comfortably.

Mile 12 – The halfway point. It was lovely to turn the corner and see the majestic Tower Bridge rise in front of me. As I ran over Tower Bridge, I had a psychological shift and started thinking about how many miles were left, instead of how far I had to go. As we ran through Wapping, the faster runners were passing us in the opposite direction on their mile 22, and I looked at them thinking “I’ll never make it that far!”.

Mile 17 – All of a sudden, it was as if someone had waved a magic wand – everyone else around me started walking – they had “hit the wall”. My quads started to hurt, but I kept pushing through the pain. I slipped into a walk/run strategy. I was getting a constant stream of messages of support on my phone, which was just awesome. I was expecting to be running around the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf and enjoying the views, but we were running underneath the walkways and through long dark tunnels – certainly the least interesting part of this course.

Mile 19 – I saw the Hearing Dogs banner, I whopped when I saw my friends there and elbowed everyone else out of the way to get over there for some much-needed hugs. My iPhone battery died at this point, and so did one of my cochlear implant batteries. I was now totally deaf in one ear. I switched my other cochlear processor to the usual everyday program so I could listen to the cheering of the crowds, which was fantastic – they really made my day. I had been worried about sweat affecting my processors but I had no issues at all. I dug deep and kept pushing forward, one foot after the other. I felt like Pacman, eating up the miles, one by one. Each mile seemed longer than the last. I was getting tired.

Mile 20 – My quads got worse and worse. At this point they were killing me but I didn’t want to stop, I wanted to finish the race – only 6.2 miles to go! I stopped to stretch – St John Ambulance came over to see if I was okay and gave me a quick thigh massage. After that I was walking a lot, in quite a lot of pain. I was walking/running past a lot of street parties – it was hard to watch people with huge plates of hamburgers and glasses of wine enjoying themselves as I ran past wanting to feed my gnawing hunger pangs! I had a bit of banter with people in the crowd and that helped to lift my spirits. So many people were standing there handing out sweets, oranges, drinks, or just with the palms of their hands out for me to touch as I went past. I loved this ‘London spirit’.

Mile 23 – Funnily enough it started to hurt more to walk than it did to run. I had sort of got used to the pain in my thighs and was running more, then my lower back started to hurt which I really didn’t like. My feet were sore by this point too – thankfully, I don’t have a single blister anywhere. I kept pushing forwards.

Mile 24 – I ran past St Pauls. Not far to go and I really wanted to push.

Mile 25 – Running down the Embankment, past all the tourists, the cheering crowds were getting much bigger now and I was pushing, pushing, pushing. Really happy.

Mile 26 – Outside Buckingham Palace, I turned the corner and saw the finish line, but when I got there, a roadside notice said ’800 yards’ …! GROAN. The next notice said ’600 yards’, then ’400 yards’, ’200 yards’ – then I saw the real finish line with all the photographers lined up, and shot through with a finish time of 6:39:54.  I DID IT!

My medal

I really loved running this race and the best thing of all was the support I got from my friends and the cheering from the crowds. I look like I’ve just been on holiday as I caught quite a sunburn. My legs are very sore and I can’t lift my left leg at all today, so I have learned how important it is to stretch. Tomorrow will be interesting as the pain is supposed to really hit you at 48 hours after the event. I am still in shock that I’ve managed to run so far. I’m so happy I can’t stop grinning.

I’ve run this marathon to raise funds for a fantastic cause, Hearing Dogs for Deaf People – please donate so that another deaf person can have an amazing hearing dog like Smudge. My donation page : Just Giving

Wishing you a Happy St Patrick's Day.

You can always count on a warm Irish welcome from 121 Captions! 

Sunday, 17^th March, 2013 11.30 am – 1.30 pm

Meet: Outside Kensington High Street Tube Station

Walk with Marian Bacon, London Blue Badge Guide

Lipspeaker & SSE provided for Marian’s walk.

Prince Albert was the driving force of Victorian cultural life so an area of South Kensington was named in his honour. We continue our "Royal" theme walking in Kensington Palace Gardens passing the ostentatious Albert Memorial and magnificent Royal Albert Hall. Today “Albertopolis “is an area of many cultural and educational sites including world famous museums which you may wish to visit in the afternoon.

We finish near South Kensington tube station where there are plenty of eating/drinking places and the museums are nearby.

Tickets £7.00 per person, payable in advance. To book places please send your name / address / telephone number / email & a cheque made out to:

Lynne Dubin, to Lynne Dubin, Walks&Talks for Lipreaders, 48 Cunliffe Close, Oxford OX2 7BL. The ‘ticket’ will be sent out by e-mail. People without e-mail should enclose a S.A.E. 

Advance booking is essential. 

It can certainly be a culture shock for some. I became used to seeing men wearing a long white desdasha, it looks so comfortable and much nicer than the usual Western clothes. I still can't get used to women wearing black in the sunshine – they need some nice colours. Some women do wear Western clothing and some teenagers even wear mini skirts. I wear my European wardrobe and I have never had an issue. A shawl is very useful to cover up in the chilly winter evenings, when it drops from 21C/70F to 5C/40F. In the summer, it can reach 70C/160F. All public places have air conditioning, so you end up running from your air conditioned hotel to your air conditioned car, running from your car into your air conditioned office / shopping mall / restaurant – as long as you stay inside, it is like being in Europe. The shopping is a mix of the large British and American retailers in the shopping malls, and smaller Arab retailers in the city streets. You can buy colourful fashions in the region, just check out ALOthman, you can find Debenhams, Selfridges, Boots, Starbucks, it is quite surreal. You can have your clothes made very cheaply by a tailor, a dress can be made for 5KD (£11/$18), a suit for 15KD-60KD (£34-136/$120-214), a formal gown from 100KD (£226/$360) upwards, and alterations such as shortening trousers for only 500 fils (£1/$2)!     

In a professional capacity, I have not encountered any issues as a woman in Kuwait and Dubai. Women do attain high profile positions in the GCC region and are treated with respect by their male colleagues. In Kuwait, women can now become judges. I have been very well looked after by the people I worked for, I have been treated equally, and I always look forward to my next trip. The men are chivalrous and make sure you are well looked after. The women treat you as one of the family. Arab hospitality is something special. You can enjoy a winter barbecue in the park with shisha, you get invited into family homes for lunch or iftar, and often I have been offered an evening tour of the city by someone I have only just met in the office! I feel much safer in the Middle East than I do in London, as people in general are more respectful of each other and there is security staff everywhere you go. 

My hearing loss has not made a difference to how I have been treated, I'm treated the same as everyone else. However! There is no awareness. You're treated like a hearing person and people have no concept or awareness of what it means to not be able to hear. Hotel staff are most agreeable to knocking on your door in an emergency and despite numerous explanations, you cannot get through to them that YOU CANNOT HEAR. It's very frustrating!

As local deaf people are not allowed to be educated after age 16 (rich families send their deaf kids abroad to get an education), nor are they allowed to work, they just stagnate. I'm amazed at such attitudes being prevalent in a modern society which has enough wealth to change things.

Women do drive, just like in the West. However, driving is a scary experience. In Kuwait, some drive like maniacs, ignoring speed limits and not indicating when they change lanes - even the bus drivers dice with death, racing each other down the main roads with passengers on board. Petrol? – only 20 pence a litre! I've not yet had the pleasure of watching camel racing - that's on my to-do list! 

The next generation cochlear implant processor has been rolled out by Advanced Bionics, enhanced with Phonak's high-performance hearing aid technology, achieving an industry first in bimodal technology. The processor will be launched in the UK within the next few weeks, so it will be some time before it is actually available as the audiology clinicians will require training prior to provision – this processor has the most exciting list of goodies!

The new processor is 40% smaller than the Harmony, Advanced Bionic’s previous BTE processor – in the photo below, the Harmony is on the left, a hearing aid is on the right, and the new processor is in the middle. It’s thinner and lighter – it is smaller in size, but larger than life in performance. The processor is available in lots of colourways.

Features

UltraZoom - The user can focus on a speaker in front of them in a noisy environment.

ClearVoice - Sound is automatically analysed to filter out environmental sounds from the speech signal, improving understanding of speech in noise by up to 55%.

The SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) is how much louder a voice is in relation to other background noise. Children need a speaker to be 15 decibels louder than background noise in order to be easily understood. Adults only need a SNR increase of 4 to 6 decibels. When UltraZoom is used with ClearVoice by a unilateral user, up to 6.5 dB SNR is obtained. The future capability of these combined features mean bilateral users will benefit with up to 70% improvement in understanding speech in noise.

HiRes Optima - Advanced Bionics’ newest sound processing strategy optimises battery life.

T-Mic - The unique T-mic is a microphone situated at the ear canal, utilizing the ear’s natural capability to gather sound for optimal listening.

HiRes Fidelity 120 - This is the only sound strategy in the cochlear implant industry that uses 120 spectral bands to deliver five times more sound resolution than any other cochlear implant processor. This means sounds are richer, fuller, and more natural.

AutoSound - The widest range of sounds, from softest to loudest, up to 80 IDR (Input Dynamic Range), are automatically adjusted to.

WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY

Matt has a Harmony processor, a Oticon Safari 900 SP hearing aid, and an iConnect. He wants to pair his laptop to his Harmony via Bluetooth – he hates wires everywhere and wants to do his auditory rehabilitation at his desk in a noisy open plan office. The easiest solution for Matt is to use a Phonak Smartlink with an MLXi FM receiver, but this is expensive. To access Bluetooth, the iConnect is needed to attach the processor to cables, neck loop, or Bluetooth headphones. Advanced Bionics advised Matt that the best solution is to upgrade to a Phonak hearing aid and the new Advanced Bionics processor with all its connectivity options…..

 

Phonak ComPilot - With the ComPilot, Matt can link wirelessly to a wide variety of devices such as mobile phones, computers, Bluetooth, media players, TVs, navigation systems, and FM systems.

Phonak RemoteMic - Speech is streamed directly and wirelessly to both ears, making it easier for Matt to listen to speech in noisy places.

Phonak TVLink - Audio is streamed directly to Matt’s cochlear implant processor so he can listen to the TV.

Advanced Bionics myPilot - With this remote control, Matt can change his processor settings.

*** Bimodal Technology ***

For the first time, Matt is able to wirelessly and simultaneously stream sound to a Phonak hearing aid and an Advanced Bionics cochlear implant processor. This is a hugely exciting stride forward in cochlear implant technology, merging the technologies available from Phonak and Advanced Bionics.

BILATERAL HEARING

The new cochlear implant processor is very exciting for bilateral listeners – such as me! Phonak Binaural VoiceStream Technology™ will allow me to hear speech and phone calls, adjust volume, and change programs – simultaneously.

Features

ZoomControl - I will be able to focus on a speaker situated on either side of me, to help me hear better in noisy places.

DuoPhone - My phone calls can be automatically streamed to both ears so I can hear voices in stereo, with a higher level of speech perception from binaural hearing.

QuickSync - Both processors can be adjusted instantly at the same time.

Future Developments

There is yet more to come from Advanced Bionics – WindBlock, EchoBlock, and SoundRelax.Cochlear implant processors are entering an exciting phase of development as all manufacturers are expected to come out with new processors this year. Watch this space!

Advanced Bionics
Brochure for the new processor: Next Gen Processor
Phonak: Dynamic FM