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Why do people refuse to get hearing help?
Hearing Loss | Last Active: Apr 6 10:27am | Replies (26)Comment receiving replies
I can sense your frustration in the questions you’re asking. Here are a few thoughts from my experiences that might provide some insight into living with a hearing problem:
1. My daughter had hearing loss as a child. She adapted by learning to lip-read because she wanted to "fit in." She was very resistant to wearing hearing aids. As an adult and a mother, she has adapted, thrived, and is quite successful, having even earned her PhD.
2. It's important to recognize that there is a distinct culture surrounding the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. You can find more information at https://dsq-sds.org/index.php/dsq/article/view/344/435
3. As someone who developed hearing loss later in life, I would like to share a few points. First, the financial burden is significant; hearing aids are often not covered by insurance. Additionally, they can make my inner ear itchy, which is quite uncomfortable. Lastly, when your normal sound experience is muted, the world can feel overwhelmingly loud.
The bottom line is that things may not always be what they seem.
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Thank you for sharing the link that explains Deafness from a cultural perspective. This is a very important topic when it comes to understanding hearing loss across the board.
It's important to understand that people who identify as the culturally Deaf represent a small minority of people with hearing loss. They receive a lot of attention because they are visible due to manual communication (American Sign Language/ASL) and are very proud of their deafness. They have lobbied against medical research to cure or remedy hearing loss. They do not want to be 'fixed'. This has gotten a lot of media attention over the years.
The majority of people with hearing loss are those who want to remain in the hearing mainstream. For lack of better terminology, they are referred to as the 'hard of hearing population'. These people were the forgotten population until HLAA was founded in 1979. HLAA, which was then called 'Self Help for Hard of Hearing People (SHHH) gave hard of hearing people an identity and a voice, not a culture. For the most part, hard of hearing people do not identify as a culture or even as a community. We are PEOPLE with Hearing Loss who value the development of technology and hope a cure for all types of hearing loss will be found some day. We want to remain in the hearing mainstream.
It's an interesting topic. While Deaf (culturally) people do not want a cure, they do demand and qualify for services related to ASL interpreters, access technology they choose to use, etc. They do not consider themselves 'disabled', but do consider themselves eligible for services mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Yes, it's complicated.
Thank you again for sharing the link in your post. I encourage others to take the time to read it.