Austria has seen a 90% decline in COVID-19 cases after implementing the use of masks.
It’s been demonstrated that the use of masks limits the spread of diseases by trapping coughs and sneezes, and preventing foreign viral emissions from coming into contact with your mouth and nose. Therefore it’s not surprising that using masks has translated into fewer cases. The use of masks are uncomfortable for many, however for Deaf and hard of hearing people, it poses an additional communicative challenge.
Reading lips and facial expressions is a universal way to comprehend a message and the emotions conveyed.
This is particularly true for the bottom half of the face, which is precisely what is covered with a mask. The top half of the face appears to be more involved with identifying the person, while the mouth area is more involved in expressing the affective component of communication. What’s more is Susan M Letourneau and Teresa V Mitchell showed in their study “that deaf signers’ accuracy in identifying emotions suffered particularly from the loss of information in the bottom half of the face.” That is, those who use sign language were had a more difficult time recognizing emotions in the top half of the face than hearing participants. It appears that deaf people generally rely more on the bottom half of the face for linguistic cues, and thus have less ‘training’ than hearing participants, who tend to focus on the eyes, picking up on those same cues using the top half of the face. This was also demonstrated in the study as “the deaf group showed an increased tendency to fixate the bottom half of the face in both tasks.” The scientists theorized that this tendency may allow ASL users to see both the face and the hands at the same time.
The challenge these days is preventing the spread of COVID-19, but is there a way to do it without negatively affecting people’s ability to communicate?
Luckily there are a couple of solutions that aim to ameliorate the loss of facial cues by providing a literal window. One design for a transparent mask comes from ClearMask which touts it’s product as beneficial to the Deaf and hard of hearing population, interpreters and translators, children…etc. It’s available for pre-order, although medical institutions are getting priority over individual orders.
Deaf Education Student Making a Difference
Ashley Lawrence, who is studying Deaf education, aims to modify masks by placing a window onto traditional masks, so that the mouth is visible. She has raised over $3,000 in GoFundMe money to be able to make and distribute these masks for free!
It’s heartwarming to see that minority groups are not being forgotten during this pandemic. If you know of anyone who could benefit from Ashley’s masks, please contact her at dhhmaskproject@gmail.com to request a free mask.