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The Communication Bubble The Communication
Bubble is a term we use to describe the area around an individual within which
he/she can understand (receive) communication comfortably. The surrounding area
is different for the different senses: - Touch, obviously, requires
that a person be in direct contact with some part of the skin.
- Taste
requires that your tongue be in contact with the object. The tongue itself only
contains taste buds that detect sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Any other sensation
comes from smell. In other words, the enjoyment of the flavor of food mostly comes
from smell.
The other 3 senses, however, are "distance"
senses: - Smell can evoke powerful memories even from the
distant past. Certain individuals, objects and locations have characteristic odors
and can be identified solely by their smells. The distance at which you can detect
an odor depends on the sensitivity of the nose as well as the strength of the
odor, how far away the odor is and whether other odors are competing for attention.
The direction from which the odor comes is not as important though the strength
of it is somewhat less if it is coming from behind. The questions are:
- Can they smell?
- How do you know?
- Hearing,
of course, is essential for understanding oral speech but also for receiving important
environmental cues. Like odors, sound reaches the ears regardless of the direction
from which it is coming. However, a person who has hearing on just one side will
not be able to localize sound very well. Sometimes individuals can hear and understand
speech only if one is very close to them on their better side, even if they have
hearing aids on. It is necessary to determine how far away one can stand in order
for them to hear, recognizing that the distance needs to be even closer in a noisy
environment.
The questions are: - How much can they hear with each
ear and with both ears?
- What can they hear? Can they detect loud sounds/voices,
or understand speech?
- How clearly can they hear and understand speech
with aids, without aids and when sick with ear infections?
- Do they need
to speech read (AKA lip read) in order to understand speech? (Note that vision
is important.)
- Can they hear equally well from both ears?
- How
much noise will prevent them from understanding speech?
- Vision lets a person know what people, animals or objects are in the
environment and whether they are stationary or moving toward or away from them
and whether they are communicating with facial or body movements. The questions
are:
- How far up, down and to the sides can they see?
- How
far ahead can they see clearly?
- How small an object can the person see
clearly?
- Do they need bright lighting in order to see?
- Do they
need good contrast between an object (like print or hands signing) and the background
in order to understand?
Back
to top The View from the Front
The horizontal line represents the center of vision out to the sides.
The 2 vertical lines represent the center of vision for each eye up and down.
Back to top The
View from the Side
The view from the side shows the line of vision from each eye is blocked
in the upward direction by how far the forehead protrudes in front of the eye.
Likewise, the view below is blocked by how far out the cheek protrudes.
Back
to top The View from the Top
View from the top shows the vision from each eye:
The angle out to the
side is not quite 180 degrees.
The vision from each eye out to the opposite
side is blocked by the nose.
The dotted line shows the angle of vision for
the right eye.
The dashed line shows the angle of vision for the left eye.
The straight lines go out from the center of vision for each eye.
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