Keywords

Resilience - Hearing Loss - Isolation - Communication - Disability Awareness

In this episode of Unravelled Claudia Marseille talks about her personal experiences and struggles with hearing loss, and her journey to overcome this challenge and pursue a successful career in the arts. Claudia discusses the significant impact that hearing loss has on different aspects of life and the importance of social and cultural changes in increasing awareness and accommodation for people with disabilities. She also highlights the need for better communication skills in pacing for better understanding, especially for those with hearing disabilities.

Main topics

• Learning to lip-read and developing visual acuity.
• How Claudia's parent's instilled a belief in her that she could achieve anything professionally.
• Why a social nature and love of music helped Claudia cope with feelings of isolation.
• The challenge of hearing loss not just a volume issue but as a difficulty in distinguishing speech over background noise.
• The importance of pacing in communication especially for those with hearing disabilities.
• Developing resilience through personal connections and technological advancements, such as digital hearing aids and closed captioning.
• The significance of social and cultural changes brought about by legislation to increase awareness and accommodation for people with disabilities.
• The positive changes in attitudes towards accommodating people with hearing loss in modern society.

Action items

You can find out more about Claudia at her author site claudiamarseilleauthor.com or her painting website claudiamarseille.com

Claudia's memoir is But You Look So Normal: Lost and Found in a Hearing World