Hearing Awareness Week

Next week is Hearing Awareness Week (25th February to the 3rd of March). Think about you day. How often is hearing important to you? Talking with friends, hearing the music to go to class, hearing cars approaching when you want to cross the road, music, getting someone's attention, it just goes on and on. Now think about what it might be like to be deaf?
It's hard to imagine isn't it?

Maybe it is time to get into the head of someone who is deaf. Try one of these books:

Whisper by Chrissie Keighery

I'm always trying to figure out what's really going on. Always having to fill in the gaps, but never getting all the details. It's like trying to do a jigsaw when I don't even know what the picture is, and I'm missing one of the vital middle pieces. How do you know if your friends are talking about you behind your back, or if a boy likes you? They could act innocent, but you'd know from the rumours. You'd hear the whispers. But what if you couldn't hear those whispers anymore? What if everything you took for granted was gone? Being a teenager is hard enough. But being a deaf teenager?





A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard

Steffi has been a selective mute for most of her life - she's been silent for so long that she feels completely invisible. But Rhys, the new boy at school, sees her. He's deaf, and her knowledge of basic sign language means that she's assigned to look after him. To Rhys it doesn't matter that Steffi doesn't talk and, as they find ways to communicate, Steffi finds that she does have a voice, and that she's falling in love with the one person who makes her feel brave enough to use it.


For more information about Hearing Awareness Week go to: http://www.hearingawarenessweek.org.au/

Also, check out the tool to help you find out how loud is too loud, and how quickly noises can damage your hearing: http://www.hearingawarenessweek.org.au/too-loud