Source
r/AskProgramming•
Apie

Deaf programmers - what particular challenges do you face in this industry?

Other

I had a great chat with a deaf girl last night. She is not a programmer, she works in a factory but it got me thinking what life is like as a deaf programmer since that is something I can better relate to. She pointed out that since everyone communicates via text these days it's quite easy for her to communicate with most people without her deafness coming into play at all. I guess a lot of programming is text based and that must help. On the other hand, conferences and talks are audio. I have never seen an interpreter.

I'm mostly just curious. Are there any and are there any ways in which your life is different? I guess office noise doesn't bother you and I guess you don't listen to music while working. I'm curious what else.

Posted Nov 1, 2019, 7:17 AM UTC

3018
Cannonstar•

I'm a Deaf developer and one of my biggest pet peeves is all these awesome educational video and podcast content being put online and only a small amount of them even bother to include subtitles/transcripts (looking at you Laracasts). I liked it better back then when the developers wrote text guides with screenshots and such.

I get it though. It's way easier to teach through videos/podcasts and it costs a lot to make them accessible. YouTube auto-captioning is improving all the time so I've been getting by with that and I usually source various books, blog posts, and stack overflow questions to get what I need to get the work done.

It's not impossible for a Deaf developer to thrive, but they put up with more inconvenience than you might think of.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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maxximillian•

For gods sake not everything needs to be a video, something with a lot of key presses and menu navigation is one of them.

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theCumCatcher•

Can you lip read a video?

..I guess not if it's a screen share of code they're talking over :p

Nvm

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underground_miner•

This so much! I really hate this trend. I am glad Google has stepped up on the autocaptioning. I can read far, far faster than people can speak :)

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greywolf_18•

To be fair , podcasts can be hours long and the time it would take to subtitle it would be astronomical, I don't think they dont it because they're lazy or inconsiderate but that they're just too busy

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underground_miner•

I am half deaf. My left ear doesn't work (since childhood) and I wear a hearing aid in the right. I went deaf for a few weeks a year or two ago. Luckily some of the hearing returned to my right ear and now with the hearing aid, I am pretty good.

That couple of weeks before my hearing was challenging. Mostly communication with non-programmers. My team was fine, we had slack, email and other written forms of communications. Our team is multi-national so written English tends to be better for everyone. Thankfully, most of our work, as programmers, is done through written communications!

I remember sitting in a meeting and using my phone with google voice dictate to capture the meeting. Worked ok, but was frustrating.

Hearing loss didn't affect the mechanics for programming, only communications with others.

It is challenging and there are difficulties, but it isn't too bad. There could be worse things that happen to you. As a plus, at night I can turn over on my good ear and nothing bothers me. I don't need to worry about having headphones or noise-cancelling because I can turn my hearing aid off :)

The hearing aids themselves are a really cool piece of tech! Mine does noise-cancelling, has blBluetoothuetooth and some other features that I can't remember at this point. There are some upsides, but I would rather have my hearing back.

Even though I can connect my hearing aid to bluetooth on my mobile, I still prefer text messages. Not only because it is easier for me, but at least I can look at it later - I really dislike using the mobile for voice. I am one of those people that have it on speaker and hold the phone up to my good ear in a weird way so that I can hear it. Please forgive me when I do that, I don't really have a choice at the time.

Please - protect your hearing! It is a finite resource. There is no treatment to bring it back and hearing aids are never the same. Music that I love just isn't the same. Don't get me wrong, it is pretty good and I still enjoy it but my favorites don't quite sound the same (could be that I never heard them right in the first place).

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stonecharioteer•

I lost my hearing in my left ear completely 2 months ago and the bits about the music resonate with me.

I had SSHL and the doctors have said I'm never getting that ear back. I am scared for my right ear and at work I constantly need to redirect people who walk next to me and ask them to walk to the right of me.

I also need to think about where I sit in meeting rooms. It helps if most of the people are to my right.

I used to be huge on eavesdropping. Can't do that ever again.

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reddilada•

Music that I love just isn't the same

Have you or u/underground_miner given bone conductive headsets a try? Something like AfterShokz Air. Daughter has lost an eardrum and these let her enjoy music again.

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underground_miner•

Bone conduction works if it isn't nerve damage. I have nerve damage on my left side. On my right is a combination of nerve and "mechanical" damage to the cochlea. So hearing aids do work, but it is different. I have also lost a lot of high frequency, so the subtle stuff in music is gone for me.

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playaspec•

I really dislike using the mobile for voice.

You're not alone there, and I still have pretty good hearing. I think I may have some deficiency in the frequency band modern cell phone compression centers around, or the bitbrate is too low. I can't understand some people quite a bit of the time.

It's gotten so bad that when my boss calls, I have to ask him to use Google Hangouts because the audio quality is better.

Please - protect your hearing! It is a finite resource. There is no treatment to bring it back and hearing aids are never the same.

I wear ear plugs whenever I'm on the subway. I took a sound meter around with me for a few days and was blown away at how loud the city can be. If you don't protect it, you're gonna lose it.

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ipe369•

Only tangetially related, but reminded me of this article from a blind programmer who uses a screen reader - https://www.vincit.fi/en/software-development-450-words-per-minute/

The speed at which the brain can recognise these words is really cool

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ApieOP•

My brother worked with a developer who was blind. His ability to do really complex code without visual aids is astounding.

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ApieOP•

What an amazing ability to code without sight. Also makes me think of the times I have written code for UIs that didn't consider accessibility.

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deathcat5•

Wow. This was so cool to read. The fact that he can understand the screen reader that fast is truly amazing!

​

No longer should I have any reason to complain about my job, even as a junior dev.

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Ryukote91•

I am amazed with this post. I am not deaf nor do I have any disability of any sort. Reading all of the comments makes me want to do better job than I usually do, cause there are people giving their all and their result is amazing.

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ApieOP•

Same here. When I think about people with disabilities who get on with shit, it feels like all the normal quiblkng we do just becomes irrelevant.

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bluefootedpig•

On the plus side, they don't have to hear that horrible sound when you hit compile and it fails. It is just a pop up to them.

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underground_miner•

I noticed reading this thread, that the comments weren't really related to programming (even mine). For me, being very hard of hearing hasn't affected my ability to program. I think it has helped because it is much easier for me to "tune out" distracting sounds. I am so focused I had to change the way my desk faces so no one can accidentally sneak up on me and scare the living daylights out of me. I am able to get solid nights of sleep in noisy environments - I sleep on my good ear. My wife was none too pleased when our kids were very small - I slept like a log :)

Disadvantages - they aren't really related to programming. The biggest would be communication issues. Second is noisy situations, meetings where there are a lot of voices trying to talk at once, social settings/parties are another. These are very, very tiring. If you have full hearing you don't realize how much your brain and ears do for you automatically. Your brain does a lot of automatic stuff that rely on two good ears; you don't even realize how seamlessly you can keep track of the person you are talking to in a very noisy/distracting environment. We have to work very hard and focus a lot of attention and energy just do the same thing (well, it isn't the same thing, more of an approximation). In the end, it is exhausting!

I am not sure if it is an advantage or disadvantage I guess it depends on the individual. I find that having any sort of hearing imp:).airment is a very invisible disability. This I find is the most frustrating with people whispering in your deaf ear or standing on the wrong side. Since I got my hearing aid and years of practice I can manage to get on the correct side. The worst offenders I find are close friends and family. They know you are deaf, but they forget and fall into old habits.

I find it funny in North America (I don't know what sorts of stigma are attached to deafness in other parts of the world or how it is if you are born deaf) that it seems to be shameful to be deaf. Hearing aids are sold as being invisible and discrete. Hell, I would love to have flashing/blinking LEDs that draw attention. Let people know and maybe they can orient themselves on the correct side and talk to me :) .

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