Here you can read about the social aspects of hearing impairment.
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Psychologist A.M. Mohr says: |
’If you cannot hear what other people are saying, it is difficult to make your own personal contribution in all sorts of social situations. Therefore, I find it striking that only one in five with hearing problems actually uses a hearing aid. One of the major reasons for this is the perception of hearing aids and not least our society’s perception of hearing impaired people’, says A.M. Mohr, Psychologist, who has worked for several years with the psychological consequences of hearing loss.
Often hearing impaired people feel left out, ignored or isolated and this might lead to loneliness, depression and low self-esteem. Additionally, people with hearing im-pairment often miss out on important aspects of their cultural life. For any musician or music lover this means that she or he is prevented from performing professionally or enjoying the full dimension of music.
People with hearing impairment encounter difficult and challenging situations every day, and this means that they do not live life to the fullest if their hearing problem is not dealt with. This applies to all hearing impaired whether they are children, young, middle-aged or elderly people. Just imagine ;
 A child who cannot engage in learning, singing games or similar activities |
| Students having difficulties following lectures |
| Professionals missing important points in business meetings |
| Social conversations and dinner parties with a number of people talking at the same time |
| Theatre, cinema, music and nature cannot be fully enjoyed when essential sounds are missed |
| Essential points in phone conversations that are missed |
Social and psychological consequences of an untreated hearing problem |
Perhaps, some of the worst consequences of an untreated hearing problem are isolation and fatigue, and as the hearing problem sometimes worsens so does the isolation. A person with reduced hearing has particular difficulty following a con-versation in large crowds or in noisy surroundings, and in this case a dinner party can turn into a social problem where it is difficult to separate noise from other sounds.
Reduced job opportunities |
A British survey shows that a person with a hearing impairment is more than twice as likely to become unemployed than a person with normal hearing. People with hearing problems may often be excluded from the job market because they are perceived to have a far-reaching disability. Even more so, some hearing impaired employees are likely to be away from work more than their colleagues. Additional-ly, some of these people leave the workforce permanently.
Some hearing impaired people can no longer adequately function in their job, and often experience that their employer is unable to offer them another position in the company. As a result, some of these people are forced to retire at an early age.
Most parents of hearing impaired children would prefer that their children attend the local school rather than a specialised school. However, teachers, speech ther-apists and school nurses usually have limited experience with hearing impaired children, and they are not fully aware of these children’s needs for the best possi-ble listening conditions. There is a danger that the hearing impaired child feels iso-lated from the other children, which will have social and psychological consequences.
Untreated hearing loss often results in certain physical problems and some of the consequences include: fatigue or exhaustion, headache, vertigo, tense muscles, stress, increased blood pressure, and sexual problems.
For millions of hearing impaired people all over the world hearing aids have proven to solve many of these social and psychological problems. As in many other cases, quality of life is improved as soon as people deal with their problems and start talking about them. For example, when people can socialise with their friends and loved ones because they can follow conversations, they feel that they are equal to other people and part of the community. Furthermore, an office job is suddenly greatly improved for the hearing impaired employee when she or he has no problems following phone conversations.
