By Ruth Lozner
Ruth Lozner received a BFA from Carnegie-Mellon University, and a MFA from American University. She has held faculty positions at the University of Maryland, College Park, Parsons School of Design, New York, and the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. She currently holds the titles of Professor Emerita from the University of Maryland, College Park and Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, UK. ruthloznerart.com
Every human has differing abilities in both mind and bodyHow good is your hearing? Your vision? Your athletic ability? Or your ability to express feelings or ideas?
We all possess unique strengths and challenges. This is the wonderful diversity and commonality of humankind. While all of us must constantly adapt according to our changing set of abilities, there are some people who must navigate through their lives with profound challenges. One of my challenges is my hearing.
Take a minute to listen to everything around you while you read this essay. Listen. Very. Carefully. What are you able to hear? The trees rustling outdoors? The tea kettle whistling on the stove? The cat meowing? The television on somewhere in the house? Footsteps of someone walking in the room or someone speaking on the phone? Someone knocking at the front door? I am able to hear none of those sounds… without hearing aids. Yet, I am enormously fortunate that my hearing loss can be mitigated with technology. I operate between two worlds: one where I hear very little (without the aid of assistive devices) and one where I can hear quite a lot (with hearing aids).
Have you ever thought about how important sound is to you? How a song can evoke a certain emotion and transport you in wonderful ways; how soothing it is to hear the bubbling of a stream or the joyous peals of laughter. Sound provides a deep richness that is integral to daily life. Think about what living in silence might be like. Maybe you take your senses for granted. I do not.
My hearing loss developed over time. The changes were so subtle that I had unconsciously adjusted to an audibly compromised world. One day when I was about 30 years old, I crossed the street right in front of a moving car! Thankfully, the driver stopped inches away from me. The driver got out of his car and started shouting at me, “Didn’t you see me? Didn’t you hear my horn blaring? Didn’t you hear my brakes screech to a halt?” “No, I suppose I was distracted and was looking the other way,” I said, guiltily. I was shocked that I hadn’t heard a thing! The realization that I had a quite significant hearing loss was dramatically proven in that instant. How potentially dangerous, how frightening! What else had I not heard all these years? What had I missed or misunderstood in conversations? How upsetting!
A visit to an ENT doctor yielded a diagnosis of “otosclerosis”, a degenerative disease that renders the tiny middle ear bones immobile and unable to carry the requisite sound vibrations to the inner ear. I did indeed have a “severe hearing loss.” Over time the disease has continued its worsening conductive bilateral progress. For now, I am helped considerably by wearing hearing aids that amplify the sound loud enough to vibrate those rigid bones. The continuation of the disease exacerbated by the inevitable loss due to aging might push my hearing to total loss. I am comforted by the fact that the Cochlear Implant has been invented and will be continually improved, and that I might always be able to hear external sounds.
What situations have you been in where hearing and understanding has been difficult: trying to hear a conversation in a noisy restaurant or rock concert? Attending a lecture and trying to hear the comments and questions from the large audience? Being in a classroom where someone is at the blackboard is talking with their back turned? Or maybe in a meeting where the participants are in a lively discussion speaking over one another? Even people with normal hearing have difficulty in situations such as those—now think how hard it is for people whose hearing is distorted, diminished or absent. Indeed, this is the beginning of empathy.
As we age, every one of us will find ourselves disabled in some way to some degree, whether it is temporarily, progressively or permanently. It is important to remember that there is a range of any disability from slight to extreme: from a sprained ankle to paraplegia; from near-sightedness to blindness; from hard-of-hearing to Deaf. The great majority of the population will experience some degree of hearing loss in their lifetimes. While there is noticeable deterioration in hearing in most adults who are 60 years and older, younger adults also report hearing loss due to noise and high-volume exposure from the use of earbuds, music venues or loud working conditions.
Hearing impairment can have a significant detrimental effect in the workplace, school, or home. An invisible disability, hearing loss often goes unrecognized as an impediment to communication and comprehension. When recognized, the necessary accommodations require assertive advocacy and persistence. The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that addressed the widespread lack of access and blatant discrimination on the basis of abilities in the workplace and public space was immensely significant. In fact, the classroom in which I taught at the University of Maryland was retrofitted to meet ADA requirements. Like most classrooms in a 1970s building, the surfaces were all hard: cinderblock or plaster walls, concrete floors, ceilings without baffles. This kind of environment produces the worst kind of acoustics. Even the slightest sounds reverberate making it nearly impossible to clearly hear individual voices. It was impossible for me to effectively teach in that space before the appropriate fixes were made of a baffled ceiling, sound-absorbing walls, and better lighting to be able to read lips and other visual cues. Now every student and instructor, no matter what degree of hearing they have, enjoy better communication in that room because of the improvements.
The advent of the Smartphone has greatly improved communication for the hearing impaired. I am able to hear far better through a phone via Bluetooth technology coupled with my hearing aids. Texting, initially designed for the deaf community who could not utilize a solely auditory device, has become a ubiquitous and beloved form of communication for me and for almost everyone. We are fortunate to be living in a time of rapid technological advancements in assistive devices as well as innovative medical breakthroughs that address a myriad of conditions. When we consider design for all abilities we all benefit. The talented students that designed this exhibit are proving that point!
It may come as a surprise to you, that I am grateful for my hearing loss. I get to experience the world in a particular way that gives me a unique perspective. Because my hearing is so diminished, my visual cortex must come into play in a more enhanced way. I have become much more attuned to a wider visual spectrum—facial expressions and nuances, and body language, as well as a heightened visual awareness of my surrounding physical environment.
I believe I have become a better graphic design teacher and artist because of those very sensitivities. Anyone with physical or cognitive challenges must develop problem-solving strategies to navigate and cope in a mainstream world. Those compensatory strategies take inventiveness and creativity—valuable skills to hone for an artist and a designer. My teaching often includes an emphasis on Universal Design (UD). It is a personal crusade to educate future designers in ways that are inclusive and empathetic, ways that will help make our world a better place. UD is a human-centered approach to the design of products and environments that increases the potential for a better quality of life for the widest range of individuals, regardless of age, size, culture, ability or disability. Simply put, it is a design process that aims to enable and empower the broad diversity found in all populations. I have become more empathetic and sensitive to the needs of people with differing abilities and more assertive as an advocate for creative, responsive and inclusive solutions to challenging issues and circumstances.
Let us all pledge to acknowledge and embrace our differences as well as our similarities, no matter what form they take. Those variations and differences are what makes us human. Let us not be complacent about mainstream practices but shift our cultural understanding of ability to build a more inclusive world. It will be a kinder, more compassionate, and more tolerant global community.
We will all benefit.
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