Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: hearing impaired and disabilities

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

> ... hard for someone with poor hearing to be
>in a cohousing group. For example, for whole-group discussions the
>group usually sits in a large circle. Someone who has poor hearing would
>continually have to ask whoever is talking to talk louder, and still would
>miss a good part of the discussion. If you were to use a P.A. system,
>you would have to have at least one mike for every two people, because
>the nature of these discussions is such that passing a mike around among
>a lot of people wouldn't work.

We had a hearing impaired member who had a cordless mike arrangement that 
somehow broadcast to HER (headset? I forget, but that's the logical one). 
The mike served as our talking stick, and did get passed from person to 
person, or parked in the center of the circle. Up to a certain size, it 
can work like that. Now and then it was HER turn to speak and she'd 
forget and speak into the mike, blasting her own ears... and she'd laugh. 

Good detailed meeting minutes help. Handouts help. Smaller discussion 
circles on issues help. 
But it's a challenge. 

An invisible disability we've had to learn about is fragrance 
sensitivity. I'm one of the members who goes into bronchiospasms over 
perfume, mold, and incense. A meditation group had a weekend retreat and 
it took a week to get the incense aired out. Now we have a house rule on 
that. We used floorboards from a waterfront demolition site in one of our 
common house rooms and several of us have been too allergic to the mold 
to use the room. It has taken a while to get others to take this 
seriously. Finally the flooring is being replaced. Another member reacts 
to fragrant flower bouquets. 


Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing
Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature)
http://www.rosewind.org
http://www.ptguide.com
http://www.ptforpeace.info (very active peace movement here- see our 
photo)