Any suggestions? Are there any sort of devices that can make it easier for the student to hear? I keep running into hearing impaired students that cannot hear my instruction unless I am standing right next to them…doesn’t work real well when teaching riding lessons. Am looking for suggestions for devices that could help.
I believe you can buy microphone set ups in which the riders wear earpieces and you wear the mic. They use them at clinics.
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similar suggestion to the communication systems, could you call your rider on their phone while they have earbuds in?
It would depend how many of your students need that support, and how fast that would kill your phone’s battery as well!
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Many hearing aids can stream calls and music from a smart phone with or without an app. If they don’t wear hearing aids, suggest that they get a hearing test. You might think it’s outside of your purview to say something, but most people need to hear it from a few different sources before they get help.
I used to sell hearing aids and I’m here to tell you that it’s NOT OK for people with a hearing impairment to go around making it everyone else’s problem. If their loss is not treatable or the instruments available are inadequate for their loss, that’s a different situation. But the world is FULL of people with mild to moderate hearing loss that won’t do anything about it because they “don’t want to look old” or “it’s not that bad”. They nod and smile and guess at what you’re saying and it’s a pain in the a$$ for their loved ones. In a riding lesson I’d say it’s a safety issue!
Thats all. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
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HOH rider here. :yes:
Couple of things that will help your riders:
FM Device:
If your students have an FM for school, ask them if they are comfortable bringing it for lessons. FMs are similar to remote talking/communication devices, and connect to the back of the hearing aid boot; there is a microphone device you will wear - make sure you clip it somewhere about six inches or more from your mouth (but not to exceed a foot), and keep it absolutely free of rubbing on any articles of clothing. Good places to clip them are on the collar of button down shirts or jackets, on the button area of polos, etc.
Hearing Aid Bluetooth:
If your clients have newer HAs, I believe they have bluetooth and can stream an on-call conversation. I don’t have a new HA so have not tried this before.
Walkie-Talkie:
If an FM device is not in the cards, consider a walkie-talkie. I have a hard time on the phone, even on speaker phone. It’s because even good quality phones distort the voice, and make it almost mechanical. Most phones these days are too expensive to be putting to risk like that anyway. A small walkie talkie clipped to the rider’s belt, or to the grab strap on the horse will help - but similar to the phone, may have distortion to it. I use the walkie-talkie for XC, since my XC often has lots of roaming away from instructor!
Megaphone:
You (or them) invest in a megaphone. It’s a great tool and is useful for XC lessons for everyone - not just those HOH!
You can’t use ear buds, air-buds or headsets with hearing aids. The over-the-ear headsets can be worn but not easily with helmets. You obviously can’t put ear-buds in your ears if you have hearing aids in there! :lol: The other issue I find with HAs is that they don’t pull sound from where the ear-mold is – they pull sound from the actual device – so having pods in your ears if you have the new ear molds that are very small, will do nothing - HA wearers still won’t hear it just because it is in their ears.
Here are some things YOU can do to help, if you are so kind:
Hand Signals
Develop some hand signals from afar that can be for communication. My instructor holds up 2 fingers to trot, 3 to canter, 1 to walk – a flat palm facing me means halt. From very far away, a circling hand in the air means “do it again” and prove it wasn’t a fluke – I have a ton more, but you get the hint. My riding instructor probably has about 20 hand signals she can give me… She’s been my instructor for almost 20 years. :yes:
Ride-Review Method:
Teach your rider to be independent and self-evaluate her riding with your help. Have her go out on the rail and do whatever it is you are teaching her; watch her, make notes of what needs to be fixed. Have her come in to the circle next to you, and tell her what is what – then have her go out and improve it again. This is my main way to ride with one of my instructors. I will go work on something, get feedback from her, and then go back and work on it again. This is very useful in group lessons, where she will keep an eye on me while teaching others, then motion for me to come over, have a discussion, and then send me back out again. She still has time to focus on the other riders, and I still get some one-on-one instruction.
Be Mindful of Wind, Distance, and Noise:
Depending on severity of hearing loss, wind, distance and noise really mess with HOH riders being able to understand their teachers. Most time they can hear you across the indoor, but they can’t make out what you are saying. Places that are windy and echoing make it worse. Any distance further than 10 feet for most people with hearing aids (moderate+ hearing loss) is guaranteed to be unintelligible even if you shout it. If they can understand you at 20ft, they are super-people…
Make sure you are facing them when talking; most HOH people will learn to read lips and rely heavily on lip reading + context to understand what you say.
Wind – this is such a huge one for me… If it is windy I’m guaranteed to not hear my instructor. Extraneous noise like cars, tractors, anything else, will compete with the HOH’s hearing and make understanding you difficult.
Hope this all helps… I will add more if I think of it.
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Hearing impaired rider here. I use a Comtek. It saved my riding life…really! Now I do own my own and give it to my instructor for my lessons. I would not expect an instructor to provide this for me.
ETA: I DO have a blue tooth hearing aid. I do NOT think this would help for lessons. Too much outside noise gets through and it’s difficult to hear. I have trouble just talking on the phone. I can’t imagine trying to hear my instructor through it
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I have minor hearing loss and my trainer is loud, so my trainer and I get by using the non-microphone methods above. Ride and review is a big one but she can still yell simple directions at me on course. I think I hear all of it at the time, but videos have shown me I’m only hearing about 60% of what she says. It’s frustrating for her, because I won’t hear an instruction the first three times she says it, and but I’ll hear her yelling “left” the fourth time when I’ve already asked my horse to turn right, so my options are yank my young horse around, or complete the turn and ignore the instruction. She would obviously prefer I not rip on my horse’s face, but to her it looks like I ignored her instruction four times, as opposed to hearing it once too late, and to me it feels like she didn’t tell me there was a change in plan and I was supposed to be turning left until my horse was halfway through his turn to the right.
I’m probably going to buy us a microphone set.
In the meantime, if you’re having to yell on course instructions, try to use two to three word instructions rather than single word instructions.
“Leg” “left” and “rein” all sound very similar to me when cantering about, as do “ho” “go” and “slow”.
“Turn left” “Add leg” “hold your reins” / “Go forward” “Slow down” and “Hoooo-oooooo” (still technically one word, but I know you all know what I’m talking about) are much easier to figure out from context.
My mom is hard of hearing and took lessons for quite a while. She really did well with a megaphone. It’s also important to understand what the hearing loss results in. Is it the inability to actually hear soft noises? Or can they hear things but sometimes they sound “mumbled”?
Also, lip reading helps a lot. So sometimes its a matter of doing an exercise with the help of the megaphone, and then talking to the rider in the middle of the arena. Looking directly at them so that they can read your lips.
Hearing impaired rider here. What I found worked best for me was to have instructor give me an assignment of what to do, send me out to the rail of arena to do whatever, then afterward either call me into middle of arena for critique, or haveme halt on the rail for it.
I simply cannot concentrate on simutaneously communicating with the horse and trying to figure our what the heck someone else is saying.
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Um yes. The “Ted Talk” earlier was a little insulting, esp coming from a former hearing aid rep. I don’t make it other people’s problem, but to recommend a hearing aid for riding?? Like all I want to hear is WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH and that helps hearing an instructor exactly how? I’ve struggled my whole life with this, honestly having an instructor who understands is best. Yelling obviously doesn’t work for everyone, but clear instructions while on the rail are awesome; leave the long discussions for walking, trotting, or stopping in the middle.
My trainer does have a mic set, we haven’t had to use it yet. I am pretty good about turning my head to read lips, but usually getting a couple sounds + context is all I need. New or young riders, that might not work.
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Thankyou for all the info! I have had to deal with a number of hearing impaired students, some with hearing aids, some without, and regardless whether they had them or not, they all have trouble hearing me! There are some suggestions here that might work–thanks again.
I don’t think I am hearing impaired in any real sense, but even so I have trouble hearing instructions sometimes (and I am getting older).
I would suggest using the same phrase for the same things every time. And being aware that some phrases or words can sound the same. I realized this voice training my horse. Anything with a long O sound is “whoa” to her (so if I say oh oh, or go, or slow, it sounds like “whoa.”) Also anything beginning with a “w” sounds like whoa, so the day I decided to count strides aloud, she slammed on the brakes when I said “one.” And make your instructions crisp and appropriately timed. I hate it when my otherwise great coach will say “Um OK now …” and then make me wait while she decides what the rest of the sentence should be.
I also found recently having a dressage test called for me, that in one particular venue I couldn’t really hear the consonants, so that B, C, E, D, P, V all ended up sounding like eeeee, and A, H, K, all ended up sounding like ayyyy. So the acoustics of a given venue are going to matter too.
Did you find the solution? I know that teaching students with hearing impairments can be challenging. To improve communication, I consider using assistive listening devices like personal FM systems or hearing loop systems. These devices can enhance sound clarity and help students hear instructions from a distance, enabling smoother teaching experiences during riding lessons. What did you end up doing?
I’ve been one of those students in the past and know the situation from a different side. Nice to hear that some teachers are concerned about all the students. These days i was actually happy to find hearing aid online with some good discounts, cause i am thinking to get a newer version of hearing aids.
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The best I could do was be close enough for the one to hear, and the deaf one to be able to look at me to read my lips. I in the past used a megaphone, which can help as well.
