Good Communication Strategies for Hearing Health Care Providers “It is all about what you say and how you say it!”

Our goal as Hearing Instrument Specialists/Dispensing Audiologists is to assist the hearing impaired population in achieving optimal communication in their everyday life situations. When we do this well, we are in turn rewarded with a successful business practice and even greater rewards. Often times, we focus on the testing procedures and technology while ignoring the basics of good communication strategies. Recently, we have been made aware of the importance of involving all staff members in the process of forming relationships with the hearing impaired person. This begins with the initial phone call from the consumer and follows through with every phone call and office appointment (Taylor, 2009; Hansen, 2007). When we master good communication skills, we will be successful in our relationship building and that in turn will help us to achieve our goal. When working with the hearing impaired population, we are faced with many factors that compound the difficulties with the communication process. The average age of new hearing aid users is still in the range of 69 years old (Kochkin, 2009). Often times, with the aging process comes a decline in cognitive and psychoacoustic auditory processing abilities, manual dexterity compromises and sensory difficulties beyond hearing loss (touch and vision) (Kricos, 2006). To communicate effectively, we must consider the whole person and we must establish communication skills that benefit our consumer first and foremost