PEER MENTORING FOR HEARING LOSS: An Uplifting Experience for All
Last July, 10 people received the first certifications as Peer Mentors for people with hearing loss from Gallaudet University and as Academy of Hearing Loss Support Specialists of the Hearing Loss Association of America. The post-graduate Peer Mentor program at Gallaudet was funded by the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation Research of the U.S. Dept. of Education and sponsored by the Rehabilitation, Engineering and Research Center on Hearing Enhancement at Gallaudet, under the direction of Matthew Bakke, Ph.D. The role of the Peer Mentor is to help people with hearing loss process new information and become comfortable with a new self-image.
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“I could tell from Betty’s body language that she was struggling to understand the others in the group, as well as from the way she was gathering copies of all of my materials during every one of my visits,” Bonnie O’Leary, my fellow Peer Mentor related to me. “I was certain it was only a matter of time before she would admit to me that she needed help too. Betty first came to my hearing loss resource group at a retirement community as a ‘support system’ for another resident. Or so she said.”
Being a late-deafened adult herself, Bonnie decided to help Betty open up about her struggle by playing a game with the group. “I told them I wanted each person to listen to my new PockeTalker Pro (a personal amplifier) and give me their review – what they liked about it, what they didn’t like about it,” said Bonnie. “Then I got out my notebook and pen, poised to take notes.
“Betty hesitated when it was her turn and had a ‘But I don’t need this’ look on her face. I said, ‘Oh, I know you don’t need it Betty, but it’s very useful for hearing people to understand how these work too, especially if someone ever asks you about it. So your perspective on this device is as important as everyone else’s.’”
An outreach specialist for the Northern Virginia Resource Center since 2002, focusing on educational and peer support services for seniors, their families and caregivers, Bonnie showed the group members how to play with the controls so they would get a feel for volume and frequency changes. During Betty’s turn, everyone at the table took turns speaking into the microphone so she could sample how each voice sounded. She smiled exuberantly as she conversed with everyone around the table, and she understood what everyone was saying to her.
“As I was preparing to leave at the end of the meeting,” recalled Bonnie, “Betty held back when the others left. She told me she had no idea how much conversation she had been missing and she thanked me for introducing her to the PockeTalker. She was going to order one right away!”
Bonnie explained that many people don’t realize they have a hearing loss until they experiment with assistive devices and praised Betty’s decision to take a big self-help step, suggesting that she would be a good “leader” in her retirement community where so many were struggling with hearing loss and were hesitant to step forward to get help.
When Bonnie returned the following month, not only did Betty have her new “toy,” she brought three new residents to the meeting. Now they all have PockeTalkers and enjoy sitting together at meals in the dining room and playing cards together.
Who better to help those struggling with hearing loss than someone who has “been there”? As a late-deafened adult, I, like my fellow Peer Mentor Bonnie, use my own years of personal experience with audiologists and hearing aids to help others affected by hearing loss. The work that we, along with many others, are involved in represents a new development in aural rehabilitation, called Peer Mentoring.
Peer Mentors are paraprofessionals, most often with hearing loss, who have been trained to assist audiologists in serving the rehabilitation needs of their clients. A Peer Mentor gives much-needed support to extend and enrich the services of licensed audiologists by teaching listening and coping skills, communication strategies, speech reading, assertiveness, a self-help attitude, problem-solving skills and how to use assistive devices. Peer Mentors do not sell or promote individual products. We only demonstrate the wide variety of devices that are available to help solve various communication challenges. Ultimately, those we mentor will come to understand hearing loss, adjust to it and take the best advantage of the equipment available to them. The goal of mentoring is the development of a sense of hope, empowerment and independence.
In addition to my own 50 years of experience of hearing loss, I also draw upon my master’s degrees in communications and in family counseling, as well as my recent post-graduate training in the new Peer Mentoring program at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.
I was first drawn to help others affected by hearing issues because I encountered so many people struggling with late-onset hearing loss, or with new hearing aids. I seek to help people and their families to understand how hearing loss affects their bodies, minds, emotions, behavior and social interactions. They need to learn how to accept and adjust to hearing loss and make the most of the equipment available, so they can stay involved in life.
Those of us who use hearing aids or cochlear implants know from personal experience that you can’t just provide technology to someone and expect everything to be perfect. We know better than anyone else that the technology cannot simulate the perfect hearing we may have had before our loss. We also know that the adjustment process requires realistic expectations plus assertiveness, patience and persistence.
While most audiologists have received training in counseling their clients for post-fitting rehabilitation, in practice, most have little time to do it. In “Peer Mentoring – Its Time Has Come,” published on Audiology Online in 2005, two eminent audiologist educators, Scott Bally, Ph.D., and Mark Ross, Ph.D., wrote that Peer Mentoring was a new concept for the field of audiology, but one that has great potential to meet both professional and consumer needs. This explains the rationale behind the post-graduate Peer Mentoring certificate program I was a part of at Gallaudet.
My fellow Peer Mentor Robin Traveller has observed, “Our hard-of-hearing senior population is booming. Many professionals don’t know how to help persons with hearing loss answer their doors or the phone. Therefore, I give presentations to professionals who work with clients and patients with hearing loss. I explain the symptoms of hearing loss and the hearing assistive technology we have available. Because many seniors are home-bound and don’t know what technology is available, I discuss our device loan programs that help those with hearing loss to function independently in their homes.”
Robert, an 87-year-old, semi-retired art dealer, is a good example of someone who has benefited from Peer Mentoring. When I began working with him, Robert had never used amplification of any kind. His only accommodations had been TV captions and having his adult son intercept most phone calls. Socially isolated since his wife’s death and low in funds for years, Robert knew that if he wanted to continue to work in the art field, he needed to find a way to better understand speech in a variety of situations.
Robert finally decided to get tested by a local audiologist who has been my professional mentor. I received permission to sit in on his examination by the audiologist. She reviewed his responses on her hearing disability questionnaire and a modified client-oriented scale of improvement. Then, before she tested his hearing, they discussed his lifestyle, future needs and major concerns.
Robert’s audiometry revealed that he had mild to profound hearing loss in one ear, with a 44 percent word discrimination score, and a moderate to profound loss in the other, with 28 percent word discrimination. It thus became abundantly clear to me why Robert had been having so many communication problems in social situations and in filtering out noise.
The audiologist explained to Robert that he needed the best digital hearing aids with dual microphones that he could afford. In an attempt to help him develop realistic expectations, she explained that he would probably have a love-hate relationship with hearing aids, since this would be a whole new experience for him. He would need a great deal of patience, since sounds he had not heard for years would seem annoying at first.
I knew from Robert’s body language that he was stunned to realize how profound a loss he had. This was a real assault on his self-image. After receiving the bad news, I feared that he might have tuned out some of the information. As Robert’s Peer Mentor, it was helpful for me to know exactly what the audiologist told him, so I could reinforce it later when he and I discussed what his next steps would be.
After learning some communication and coping skills, he has finally accepted the reality that he needs more help with his hearing loss, such as an amplified telephone and hearing aids. A key role for Peer Mentors is helping clients to process new information and to become comfortable with a new self-image.
Indicative of the sort of help that Bonnie was able to give to Betty and the way I was able to assist Robert, audiology educators Bally and Ross have concluded that “the time has come for the audiology profession to adopt and encourage the formal role of Peer Mentors to assist in the care of, at least, some of its clients. We believe that the usual hearing aid delivery model, which is about the only type of aural rehabilitation assistance that the overwhelming number of clients receive, can be enhanced and improved with the involvement of a Peer Mentor.”
Bally and Ross believe that Peer Mentors can operate in a variety of ways. They envision trained Peer
Mentors working in a supportive role under the direct or indirect supervision of a licensed audiologist.
“They can keep their ‘day-job’ and simply make themselves available to cooperating audiologists for help with clients who require more or different assistance than they can give. Other mentors may elect to devote more, or even full time, to mentoring activities. … Some people may require a home visit to ensure proper placement and use of hearing assistive devices. This activity may include help with the installation of TV listening systems, and assessing the need for specific signaling and warning devices as well as the appropriateness of the alerting signals in a smoke detector. Peer Mentors would be expected to help identify options for the most effective visual display (i.e., TDDs or Captel phones) or sound enhancement telephone system for them.
“Peer Mentors would also be engaged in their community on behalf of hard of hearing people, perhaps by serving on local advisory committees or by giving presentations about hearing loss and [assistive listening devices] to various community organizations.”
Bally, who taught most of the classes, says that in recruiting the first class of Peer Mentors, “We looked for enthusiasm and a demonstrated desire to support and work with others. All the individuals we selected viewed themselves as ‘works in progress’ which is a terrific model for others.”
Bally and Ross conclude, “Peer mentors may serve hard of hearing people as a kind of ombudsman. When questions or issues arise that can best be managed by a professional, they would be trained and expected to make the appropriate referral.”
This is exactly how I and others, as the first graduates of the Peer Mentoring program at Gallaudet University, are using our knowledge. We find our work to be immensely gratifying because we know we are filling a void. And we have been grateful, as Peer Mentors, to help bring improvement in the lives of people like Betty and Robert.
