Holidays are full of hustle and bustle, tradition, travel , noise and family .For most of us, it has a bit of stress added in. For children and adults with hearing loss, there can also be extra stress and loneliness.

At first thought, you might find this odd..this is the BEST time of  the year, right? Well, try to imagine yourself from their point of view. If a child or adult only signs and the family and friends with whom they get together with during the holidays do not sign, this makes communicating very hard. Perhaps some people have taken time or interest and know some basic greetings..but after that, people often  talk quickly and move on. If a child or adult uses  listening and spoken language, it is not necessarily much easier. People speak fast, there is background noise, people are moving all over while talking, which distorts their voice and makes it very hard for someone to speech read.  Often, children and adults with hearing loss became extremely lonely and feel left out. 

There is hope. Plan ahead. If you are inviting  people with hearing loss to your home, have paper and pencil or  technology available to make communication flow easier. If you are  a parent or spouse of someone with hearing loss going to someone's home, bring some communication options along.   Set up seating in a semi circle, so people can all see each other. Remind people to get the  person with hearing loss' attention first, before speaking or signing. 

This may not make the communication perfect, but it will allow that person to feel intentionally included. This helps that person want to advocate more and some of the loneliness can disappear. 

Another great idea is to buy some movies or books for the child with hearing loss that have characters in them who have hearing loss, so they can relate. It is also a great idea to get them for the families who don't have hearing loss, so they can start to learn about hearing loss.

I get this question often, 'Is ASL universal?'. Ummm, no.. First off, it means AMERICAN sign language. Second of all, does the world speak English?  Sure, most Europeans learn it as a second language, but it is not their main language. Why is that, you might ask?  The answer is simple=culture. 

Culture plays a huge part in our language and how it evolves. Do you know that in some cultures, it is disrespectful NOT to look an elder in the eyes, yet in another culture, it is disrespectful if you DO  look an elder in the eye.  Did you know that Eskimos have such levels of cold that there are 50 spoken words in their language  that describe snow alone!

Transfer that over to  signed language. Motion, dialect, gestures, facial expression, eye contact all play a role in these visual languages. So, no , there is not a universal sign language. 

When I went to Europe, I met  3 different  groups of people who were signing and talked to 2 of the groups. It was  comical,about as comical as me trying to  speak English to someone in Slovakia who didn't know English. We tried, pointed and smiled alot. The first group I met was from Italy. How did I know-they drew the shape of the country in the air and then , yup, wrote ITALY on a paper;) Interestingly, they knew the sign for America that is in ASL-not sure if it is the same in Italian  signs.  They were thrilled to have me come over and chat and we muddled through with pen, paper and gestures.  Later, I met a couple in Iceland. They knew English, so they could read my lips and  half gestured and half spoke to converse with me. The last group I saw in the Iceland airport. It was crazy busy at the   ticket counter and I was beyond exhausted, so I didn't  converse. It was magical to me, though, to see  signing all over Europe. It was frustrating, and mildly brain confusing, to not be able to understand it. It is such a given to me that when I see someone signing,  I can understand. 

My daughter is constantly pushing her brain to learn new spoken language.. I am going to look into seeing if I can find apps or something to try to learn some foreign sign languages... Keep ya posted!