Jennifer Finney Boylan’s New York Times’ article provides a humorous but also important take on lip reader’s experience during this pandemic. I perhaps laughed louder than others given that I wear hearing aids, read lips, and am a woman.

There are ways to accommodate people like me. But if our collective pandemic experience has taught us anything, it’s that small sacrifices to help others are not exactly America’s strong suit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/opinion/hearing-impaired-masks.html?referringSource=articleShare

This Washington Post opinion piece clarifies the difference between how

hearing people with masks can better communicate with the deaf (through the examples that the writer mentioned, for example, employing pen and paper, learning the American Sign Language manual alphabet) as opposed to the ways they can communicate with people who are hard of hearing. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/16/masks-are-barrier-against-virus-they-also-pose-major-hurdle-deaf-people/)

Sara Nović, the writer, narrates her own experience experiencing other people’s anger when they don’t realize she is deaf—both before and during the pandemic—and also provides brief suggestions for those can hear in helping to ease communication.

As a person who’s hard of hearing and lip reads, I appreciate it when people take these steps to improve communication.