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Empathy through Simulation

Writer's picture: chadrifflechadriffle

Image of individual experiencing a hearing assessment.
Photo by Mark Paton on Unsplash

Today I utilized a website that simulates hearing loss to experience moderate, mild, and normal hearing loss in a restaurant setting with the goal being to build empathy. Starting with the modera

te experience I listened transcribing what I heard. Then I switched to mild and finally normal. The experience was enlightening and helped me to better understand what it would be like to be an individual experiencing hearing loss day in and day out.



Reflections:

I quickly realized that I could participate in the conversation which, I didn't expect. I envisioned the experience more like the severe hearing loss simulation. The challenge is that I unknowingly completely misheard large portions of the conversation. Moderate hearing loss was more like I couldn't trust my hearing. As an individual in that setting I would be very uncomfortable questioning every response and my understanding of the surroundings. Mild hearing loss was a similar experience. With mild hearing loss I felt more confident hearing the individuals, but still misunderstood the waiter's first question.


I chose the restaurant setting beca


use I spent 10 years working in restaurants. Reflecting on this experience made me think about the frustration I felt when people asked me to repeat myself over and over. I also remember my manager at a fine dinning restaurant intentionally working on body language and repeating orders back to people. I don't know if supporting individuals with hearing loss was his intent, but this universal accommodation would be very appreciated if I had hearing loss.




Action Steps:

I believe that understanding a problem is just the beginning. Real change comes from intentional actions. That being said, this activity gave me one more reason to continue working on the practice of active listening. Specifically the art of paraphrasing for understanding. I imagine that if the waiter had paraphrased my responses, I would have felt more confident and accurate in my transcripts. A second action step based on this activity is to have patience when someone asks clarifying questions and always assume positive intent when communicating. Who knows, maybe this simulation is the experience someone I am working with is having and I know I would spend a lot of time asking questions if that was my experience.

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