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Hearing Loss | Last Active: Mar 14, 2021 | Replies (69)
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@julie04, This is a great story. I've read about some of this from my years as a member of HLAA. But you've lived it during its infancy. Thanks for sharing this and for all the years of dedication. If it wasn't for the work of this organization, people with hearing loss would most likely be at the mercy of their hearing care providers. We know that they do not have all the answers, and certainly not always the best solutions. It's exciting to be part of the support network.
Tony in Michigan.
Replies to "@julie04, This is a great story. I've read about some of this from my years as..."
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To me, it's distressing and extremely disappointing to learn that the audis with degrees know so very little about how to enable us to hear better! I bought my aid from a lowly Costco tech--but she has taken the time and effort to actually LEARN about hearing and the disease that cause hearing loss as well as the latest things that can help. Imagine how disappointing it was to go to the CI hearing center two hours away and find that neither the two audis nor the surgeon knew even a tiny bit about Meniere's or relatively new speech-to-text apps! Since I was being evaluated for a CI, my first and most important question was if it would cancel out the recruitment and distortion which causes such grief to Menierians, but none of the three "experts" with degrees could reassure me. I asked for an appt. with the audi, in order to learn about new adaptive devices and tricks, but she hadn't even heard of Live Transcribe and dismissed all speech-to-text apps as needless! The gal at Costco has read a great deal about Meniere's and understands both recruitment and distortion. How did those two audis at the CI center get a degree without learning about those two very bothersome problems for many HOH?
Education is a general failure in this country: I'm a self-taught graphic designer/editor/photographer and have had several interns and newly graduated employees over the years. Not a single one of them could size a photo! Four years of expense, and they couldn't accomplish the most mundane task necessary to turn photos and text into an appealing layout! The daughter of a close friend lived with us for a year (she's in her 50s and owes lots of college loan debt) in order to get started in real estate in this small town. She graduated from a very expensive school, but until now she's never had any job other than clerical. I encouraged her to pursue her interest in real estate photography, and she's now supporting herself and in great demand, entirely self-taught, including operating a drone. All that expensive education never enabled her to have a job she liked that could support her...until now, 30 years after graduating. What's wrong with that picture?