The answer to this question is yes. What devices there are to help you will depend on whether you already wear hearing aids or not. A few general tips that might help you include:
- Arriving early to allow you to pick the best seat to hear in (usually at the centre of the table and furthest away from any sources of background noise like the air conditioner or any other electronic equipment).
- Request a microphone. You could ask the organiser if a microphone can be used at the meeting.
- Try to get the agenda ahead of time and any speaker’s notes that might be available.
- You could use a speech-to-text app like LiveTranscribe or Otter. However, you would need to check with your employer before doing this.
- Disclose that you have hearing problems in the meeting.
If you wear hearing aids…
Discuss with your Audiologist to see if any assistive listening technology might help you. Remote mics like Roger Pens help bring distant sound directly into your hearing aids during a meeting.