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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBest Hillary ad! Very moving.
Shows effect of Children's Health Insurance on one life. Child born with profound hearing loss saved by early intervention. You will applaud and may cry - this is why you are proud to be a Democrat.
If above embedded link does not work, search for 'Martha and Sara, Hilary' on YouTube.
ProudProgressiveNow
(6,129 posts)sunnystarr
(2,638 posts)Gothmog
(145,291 posts)This is a very powerful ad
NNadir
(33,525 posts)...about Ms. Clinton, the more positive I become.
I expect her to be a great President. Although I'll miss Obama, we'll again be in great hands.
Moving...tear jerking...moving.
Excellent.
K&R.
tblue37
(65,393 posts)I also have a normal speaking voice, so people usually have trouble believing that I am severely hearing impaired as I am.
I am also severely hearing impaired.
I wear two powerful (and expensive) digital hearing aids, but even with them I don't understand most speech without working hard to lip read and to incorporate contextual signals and body language to help me make sense out of conversations. Even at that I often misinterpret words in a way that can cause much hilarity, as I recount in one of the articles on my deaf/Hard of Hearing site (I'm Listening as Hard as I Can!):
I Just Love Having a Deaf Mother--I Never Know What You'll Come up With!
http://deafnotdumb.homestead.com/deafmom.html
One reason they cannot quite believe that I am deaf is that I don't speak the way they expect a deaf person to speak.
Start this video at 1:40 and listen to Marlee Matlin's voice. As a trained actress, her speaking voice is smoother than that of many deaf people, but you can still tell she is deaf:
<iframe width="854" height="480" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Because the condition that causes my deafness (Meniere's Disease) is progressive, I have become increasingly deaf as I age. I have always been hearing impaired, but I was able to hear enough growing up to develop a normal speaking voice, and since I work really, really hard to understand, I manage better than most people with such severe hearing loss. (I must admit, though, that I find conversations exhausting, so I have to have plenty of down time after too much verbal interaction over too long a time span.)
People "know" I am severely hearing impaired, but although they know it with their brains, they cannot quite believe it with their guts, so they fail to adjust to my deafness. They carelessly cover their lips as they speak or turn their faces so I can't see their lips directly, or they do the "walk and talk" or try to talk to me from too far away or from another room or from behind a door.
Since this young woman speaks so very well, I just bet she has to deal with these same issues all the time.
4dog
(505 posts)I'm losing my hearing in my 70s, and it's profoundly frustrating, though only a small fraction of what you and Sara have experienced. But the video should be revealing to any person, with or without hearing loss.
tblue37
(65,393 posts)site:
http://deafnotdumb.homestead.com/articleindex.html
Most are humorous, though a few are not. Here is the intro blurb on my homepage:
A hearing impairment usually provokes impatience and intolerance rather than sympathy or consideration. If I were blind, a person would not put his foot out to trip me or get angry because I could not see, and yet because I am hard of hearing (HoH) and have trouble understanding what is said to me, an awful lot of people get angry, as if I am simply not bothering to pay attention. Believe me, I AM paying attention--in fact, I am listening as hard as I can!
sinkingfeeling
(51,457 posts)Control-Z
(15,682 posts)Beautiful story.
I can't say more.