Some people find that they have difficulty gauging how loud or quiet their own voice is. Their voice may seem very loud to them, but quiet to others or seem low to them, but be loud to the listener.
Below are some of the things that some people said about knowing how loud/quiet their voice is:
1. I have problems with the volume of my own voice and the volume can vary considerably with and without a hearing aid. I am losing confidence in gauging the volume of my voice and I’m not embarrassed to enlist the help of a family member, friend, colleague or acquaintance to tell me when me when I am speaking too loudly or quietly.
2. I have developed signals with family and friends. Hand held still horizontally means that I am too loud, and an upward gesture means raise my voice. I prefer people not to use a downward gesture as it seems rather negative to me.
3. Wearing a hearing aid helps me to use the correct volume when I’m speaking.
4. When I get tired, my concentration is less and it becomes harder to control the volume of my voice.
5. I try to raise and lower my voice depending on whether the background is noisy (e.g. crowded).
6. I watch other peoples’ reactions to my voice and raise and lower it accordingly.
7. I practise talking to myself without a hearing aid and then put on the aid to see if I was correct. I try to learn the “feel” of the right volume.
8. If you are worried about your voice contact the hearing therapist and ask to be put in touch with a speech therapist with an interest in helping deaf people. If there is no hearing therapist try to find out whether there is a speech therapist with an interest in helping deaf people in your area. However, in some areas there seem to be very few specialist speech therapists.