[roberthahn]

A lot of folks here wants you to ask him what he wants.

Be prepared to hear that he doesn’t know what would help. But he will appreciate that you’re giving him agency.

One of the challenges I have with this question as someone who is mainstreamed, profoundly deaf (this means I don’t know sign language) is that deafness takes a number of forms, so there’s no real one size fits all solution.

But far be it for me to point out problems not suggest solutions!

* ask him if it would help to provide a real-time transcription service. This is not an automated system but a specially trained human who will transcribe meetings in real time.

* ask him if he wants someone to write a meeting summary that captures decisions made, action items delegated etc. then make sure that happens.

* ask him if an ASL interpreter would help.

* sign up for sign language courses yourself and use your professional development budget to pay for it. If he doesn’t know ASL ask if he would want to learn also. Pay for his training.

* help him find a professional community of deaf persons to be a part of. Give him options. No group is perfect for everyone.

* the biggest barrier he will face in his life is isolation. So support him so that he doesn’t feel isolated.

* if your company throws company events for everyone to participate in, try to create a something similar, running concurrently, that’s accessible for him. Solicit ideas from him but it could look like a small group chat online or playing games online.

* hearing aids (if he needs them) are REALLY FRICKING EXPENSIVE - benefits typically cover up to $500 and aids can cost $2-7K. Offer to buy his next pair.

This is all off the top of my head. I could probably think of more with some time.

I hope this helps. Thank you for taking the initiative to make him feel part of your team.

(Edit: formatting)

[daveloyall]

Could you expound on the definition of profoundly deaf, please? I think the phrase is used differently here (US American midwest/south).

[roberthahn]

Yep!

The scale I have seen used includes the terms “mild, moderate, severe, profound”…

… ah. Here’s a chart that might help:

https://www.asha.org/public/hearing/degree-of-hearing-loss/

I’m not an audiologist so while this is a great question I don’t have these answers at my fingertips :)

At any rate, my “definition” was intended to clarify what mainstream meant in this context.

[daveloyall]

ah, "mainstreamed" means not using ASL as your primary language (or at all, sounds like?), got it.

I have seen folks make a related distinction: born deaf or lost hearing.

Then there are some categories which are defined by physiology: some folks can't receive any benefit from cochlear implants because the biological hardware isn't there to interface with.

This just blows my mind: There are folks who fall into the subset of a subset of a subset and thus are so different from me that it's hard to imagine what it is like to be them, and yet, through ASL for example, or games, or so many things, it becomes apparent that they are just like me--and again, not at all. Minds are neat.

[adinisom]

For others reading, "mainstreamed" means being placed in a regular classroom. An ASL user might be mainstreamed with interpreters for communication access. On the other hand someone who grows up using oral methods for communication might use hearing aids, CI, FM units, reading/writing in a mainstream classroom.