Toolkit Idea Topic 19-Suggested Reading Books

Hi Everyone. This is the 19th of 27 Idea topics
I listed on three sheets of paper called:
"A Toolkit of Ideas for People With A Hearing Loss"
Sheet 1 Introduction Ideas 4 topics
Sheet 2 Toolkit Ideas 18 topics
Sheet 3 Closing Ideas 5 topics

19 Suggested Reading Books: There are two types of
books that people with a hearing loss should read.
First are books dealing with hearing loss. The other
ones are books that deal with life and daily living.
Sometimes we get so absorbed with our hearing loss
that we forget about life and daily living in our
lives.

A Books About Hearing Loss: Books I found helpful
with my hearing loss.

1 "Keys To Living With A Hearing Loss" by Marcia
Dugan 1997. This author was very active with HLAA/
SHHH for many years and her book reflects her own
experieces with hearing loss as well as many people
who communicated with withh SHHH dduring it's 18
years of existence. The 41 keys/chapters distill.
in a short time, how people can help themselves to
live better lives with hearing loss. It includes
useful information about hearing in restaurants,
theaters, places of worship, in the hospital, when
traveling and in the courtroom. Each short chapter
stands on ir's own and can be used to start a good
discussion for support groups and meetings. It is
out of print but can be obtained at your local
library or used copies can be purchased at low cost
on the Internet.

2 "Hear:Solutions,Skills & Sources For People With
Hearing Loss" by Anne Pope 1997. This book has eight
chapters that explain the sources of sound, how the
ear works, and what can go wrong with full color
illustrations. Valuable advise is given on choosing
a hearing aid as well as information about assistive
listening devices and skills such as speech-reading
and auditory training. It provides strategies for
dealing with everyday situations and helpful inform-
ation for families and friends. The emotional impact
of hearing loss is also covered with advice on stress
management,legal matters and the functions of self-
help groups. Interviews with eight people who had
become hard of hearing offer personal insights and
interesting perspectives.

3 "An Invisible Condition: The human Side of Hearing
Loss" by Howard Rocky Stone 1993. This book is an
excellent collection of 14 years of editorials by
Rocky Stone from the SHHH Journal now called
"Hearing Loss".It is a short book and easy reading.
It provides insights into a man that was gifted and
never dreamed that the longest fight of his life
would be a battle of hearing loss and later a loss
of sight. He started SHHH and called hering loss an
"invisible condition". He helped close the tremendous
gap that still exists between the hearing and
non-hearing fellow human beings among us.

4 "The Story of My Life" by Helen Keller 1954:
Everyone should read this classic book. Helen
Keller is known to many people from their school
days or to others who saw the movie or play
'The Miracle Worker". Before she became a world
famous speaker, author, and advocate,she was blind,
deaf and mostly mute child living in Alabama
in the 1880's and died at the age of 87 in
Connecticut. Misunderstood, pitied and spoiled by
her family, at the age of six, she terrorized the
household with her tricks and tantrums. Then 20
year old Anne Sullivan arrived who provided the
key that unlocked the door between Helen and the
world. The book unfolds the trials and tribulat-
ions Anne and Helen encountered and as they
forged a 49 year long friedship. From their
isolation in the family cottage to the moment
when Helen finally understood the concept of
language and communication, she managed to
"see" so much around her, learned so many
languages,learned to speak, write and travel.
Her book is in three parts: the story of her
life, her letters and a section about her life
and education. Hope you enjor reading it as much
as I did.

B Books About Life & Daily Living: Books I found
helpful and enjoyed reading.

5 "The Thre Boxes of Life:How To Get Out Of Them"
by Richard N Bolles 1981. This book is full of
ideas about the three boxes of life called:
EDUCATION-WORK-RETIREMENT.We divide our whole
life-span into three periods:the first is that
of "Getting an Education", then "Going To Work"
and earning a living and the last period of
"Liiving In Retirement". It's highlighta will
be covered in closing topic 24.

6 "Motivation and Personality" by A H Maslow
1987. This author studied people with good
psychological healthinstead of sick or neurotic
people. He found people with peak experiences
that made them feel good about themselves. He
then propsed a theory of human motivation caled
"The Basic Needs Theory". It includes five basic
needs in a hierarchy order. These needs will be
covered in closing topic 25.

7 "Love, Medicine and Miracles" by Bernie Siegel
1986 This book shows patients and their loved
ones how they can influence their own recovery
from cancer. It provides lessons learned and
miracles about self-healing from exceptional
cancer patients. Dr Siegel shows that love heals
and miracles happen every day. I have sent a copy
of this book to many people, both relatives and
friends, when I found out they had cancer and
everyoneof them said it helped them understand
what they were experiencing.

8 "Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life"
by Wayne Dwer 2007. This renowned author has
written many books on self-development and
this one is his latest. In this book he has
taken the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching and
transformed them into 81 verses/chapters
designed foractually living The Great Way.
It is a book to be read slowly one verse at
a time that may forever change the way you
look at your life and the result will be
that you will live in a new world aligned
with nature. As you read you may undrstand
some of George Carlin's wisdom and learn to:
1 Change your life by trusting your ability
to respond to circumstances in your life.
2 Focus on understanding yourself instead
of blaming others.
3 Accomplish much by trying less.
4 Come to grips with the radical concept
of "enough is enough".
5 Take pleasure from what you possess
without being attached to things.
6 Practise recognizing that there is a
time for every thing.
Read it more than once and you will find
that it can change your life.

9 "Alcoholics Anonymous(AA)" Headquarters
in NYC 1997. This book with over one million
copies shows how alcoholics have reccovered.
It's main point is that alcohol is a disease.
It's many stories by anonymous men and women
who were addicted and helped by following the
12 steps are very moving and full of insight.

I am not an alcoholic but recommend this book
for two good reasons:
1 The two men who founded HLAA/SHHH and The
Phenix Society were members of AA and used the
ideas and concepts of the 12 steps to start
these groups.
2 There are many, many self-help groups that
use the 12 step approach. A few of them are
listed here:
1 Al-Anon for families of alcoholics
2 Nar-Anon for families of drug addicts
3 Gam-Anon for families of gamblers
4 O-Anon for families of over-eaters

Your thoughts about these nine books and
others you may have read may be of interest
to those of us with a hearing loss.

Best Regards Paul in New Jersey

Toolkit Idea Topic 18-Support Organizations

Hi All. This is the 18th of 27 Idea topics
I listed on three sheets of paper called:
"A Toolkit of Ideas for People With A Hearing Loss"
Sheet 1 Introduction Ideas 4 topics
Sheet 2 Toolkit Ideas 18 topics
Sheet 3 Closing Ideas 5 topics

18 Support Organizations: There are quite a few
support organizations available to help people
with a hearing loss. Cochlear America lists 16
of them on their website. Here we will list a
few key ones that are most likely to be of
interest to those of us who have a hearing loss.
Check their website for more detailed information.

1 HLAA/SHHH: Hearing Loss Association of America
previouly called Self Help for Hard of Hearing
People is located in Bethesda, MD. It is the
nation's largest organization for people with a
hearing loss and has about 10,000 members plus
about 7-10,000 members at the local level that
participate but do not pay national dues. The
organization exists to open the world of
communications for people with a hearing loss
through information, education, advocacy and
support.
It has 12 state organizations in CA, FL, GA,
MI, NC, NJ, NY, OR, PA, TX, WA and WI as well
as about 200 local support groups in the
country. A click on your state of the US map
on their website will provide information
about support groups in your state.Membership
dues are $25 per year that includes a bimonthly
publication called "Hearing Loss" as well as
special rates for attending their national
convention which will be held in Reno, NV
June 12-15, 2008. Attendance varies from
800-1500 per year depending on location which
changes each year.

2 ALDA: Association of Late Deafened Adults is
located in Rockford, IL. Most of it's members
share the common experience of having been
raised in the hearing world and becoming deaf
rather than being born deaf. They are unable
to understand speech without visual aids such
as speech-reading, sign language and/or CART
(Communications Access Real-time Translation).
Their motto is "whatever works". It has chapters
in CA,FL,GA,IL,IN,MA,ME,NJ and OH. Membership
is $25 ($20 for Seniors) per year and includes
their quarterly publication "ALDA News" as well
as special rates for attending their annual
convention in Chicago,IL October 8-12, 2008.
Attendance varies from 150-300 people.

3 SWC: Say What Club is a non-profit Internet
based organization run by volunteers for people
with a hearing loss or late desfened adults or
people interested in hearing loss issues. It
has about 400 members and eight lists of which
one is for people interested in or have cochlear
implants. Each list has it's own personality and
includes every day people like artists, writers,
engineers,lawyers, librarians, psychologists,
cat & dog lovers, teachers and others who have
had experiences with hearing loss. There are no
dues but donations are cheerfully accepted to help
offset annual expenses of about $7,600 per year.
It has an annual convention which usually includes
about 40-50 people. This year's convention will
be held in Philadelphia, PA July 9-12, 2008.

4 CHHA: Canadian Hard of Hearing Association is
based in Ottawa, Canada and is the equivalent of
the HLAA/SHHH organization for hard of hearing
people in Canada. It has local support groups
and an annual convention. If you attend a HLAA
convention you may meet pople from Canada who
attend and run excellent workshops especially
in speech-reading. They also have many
interesting publications and pamphlets on
hearing loss.

5 Other Organizations Of Interest:
a CHS: Canadian Hearing Society in Toronto, Ontario.
b League For Hard of Hearing in NY City & Florida.
c American Tinnitus Assoc in Portland, Or.
d Cochlear Implant Assoc in Washington, DC.
e Natl Cued Speech Assoc in Cleveland.OH.
f NAD: Natl Assoc of the Deaf in Silver Springs, MD.
g A G Bell Assoc of the Deaf in Washington, DC.
h Telecommunications for the Deaf in Silver Spring,MD.

Sharing your experiences with the above and other
organizations not mentioned above may be of help to
those of us with a hearing loss who are interested
in those groups.

Best regards Paul in New Jeresey

Toolkit Idea Topic 17-Sign Language

Hi Everyone. This is the 17th of 27 Idea Topics
I listed on three sheets of paper called:
"A Toolkit Of Ideas for People with A Hearing Loss"
Sheet 1 Introduction Ideas 4 topics
Sheet 2 Toolkit Ideas 18 topics
Sheet 3 Closing Ideas 5 topics

17 SIGN LANGUAGE:
1 Why Study Sign Language?
a Almost 100% OF the people who attend NAD
(Natl Assoc of the Deaf) conventions use
sign language. About 60% of the people who
attend ALDA(Assoc of late deafened Adults)
conventions signand about 30% of the people
who attend HLAA(Hearing Loss Assoc of America)
conventions sign. Plan to attend the SWC
convention in Philadelphia this year to see
how many people sign and use lipreading to
communicate with others.
b A research study showed that only 7% of the
meaning conveyed by by typical utterance regarding
our feelings & attitudescomes from the words we
use, 38% from our voice, and 55% from our body
language. When our body languageconflicts with our
words, we pay more attention to our nonverbal
message.

2 Sign Language: is a language that uses manual
communication, body language and lip patterns
instead of sound t convey meaning-simultaneously
combining hand shapes, orientation and movement
of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions
to express fluidly a speaker's thoughts. Sign
language commonly develops in deaf communities,
which includes interpreters, and friends and
family of deaf people as well as people who are deaf
or hard of hearing themselves.

3 American Sign Language(ASL):is a complex visual-
spacial language that is used by the deaf community
in th US and English-speaking parts of Canada. It is
a linguistically complete, natural language. It is
the native language of many deaf people as well as
some hearing children born into deaf families.
Hand gestures are only one component of ASL.
Facial expressions such as eyebrow movement and
lip-mouth movements are also significant in ASL
as they form a crucial part of the grammatical system

4 Alphabey & Numbers:
a To see the alphabet letters and numbers 0-9 in
black and white type on the internet "american sign
language alhabet". Then click on "american manual
alhabet wikipedia" and print out a copy for your self.
b To see the alphabet letters in color type on the
internet "american sign language fingerspelling",
then click on "American sign language(ASL)" and
print copy for yourself.

5 Fingerspelling:is a way many sign people see a
message. Just as you use 26 letters of the alphabet
to write words on paper, signers use 26 hand-shapes
to show words in front of their body. Each word is
usually spelled letter for letter. It is not hard
to learn. If you and a friend practise these hand-
shapes you can have a two-way conversation. But it
takes a lot of practice to increase spped of finger-
spelling.

6 Learning Signs: Signs are usually learned by
categories or groups such as:
a ategories
1( Clothing
2) Colors
3) Family & Relatives
4) Foods
5) Home
6) People
7) Places we go like restaurants, doctors office
8)Parts oif the body
9) Questions: who what when where & why
10)Time and many more
B Groups:Each group has a specific movement
and all signs in the group basically have
the same movement except for the letter shown.
Example: all in the family group.
1)Sign F for family, A for agency, C for class
To see the sign for family group go towebsite
and type"lifeprint.com", then type family, then
click on "family version b1" to see the sign.

7 References:
a My favorite sign book is "The Joy Of Signing"
by Lottie L reikehof seond edition. It has many
pictures and categories plus an alpabetical
index in the back of the book for each sign.
b Other books can be found on the internet by
typing Sign Language Books.
c A favorite website to learn the alphabet and
finger-spelling is "lifeprint.com"
d Most community colleges and some support
groups offer basic, intermediate and advanced
coursess in sign language. Agood textbook and
experienced teacher are helpful.


Let's exchange ideas on how we learned or can
learn sign language so others can profit from
our experience.



Best regards Paul in New Jersey