What do you think about when people say, "Wearing hearing aids is like wearing glasses"?
I suppose I can see (no pun intended) how it is kind of like wearing glasses. They both can help with your sensory loss. You wear glasses to help you see. You wear hearing aids to help you hear better.
Notice the slight difference? Most glasses usually help people temporarily see or have totally restored vision, hearing aids are supposed to help deaf and hard of hearing people temporarily hear better; and it all varies depending on the degree of hearing loss.
Another way wearing hearing aids is not like wearing glasses would be that wearing glasses is very common. You see people wearing glasses all of the time. They are everywhere. And unless you are hanging out with a bunch of senior citizens, you will hardly see people wearing hearing aids.
I can go on and on about how wearing hearing aids is NOT like wearing glasses. Personally, I don't think it is a very good analogy. But, I can understand why people would say this; especially well-meaning parents and teachers who say this to deaf and hard of hearing children.
What do you think?
(e
Hi (e,
ReplyDeleteI wear both and they are not the same. I can function better without my hearing aids then without my glasses. When I wear my glasses, I'm not conscious of being "sight impaired". I can see fine. It's not the same with hearing aids.
I wrote a post on this subject after I first got my hearing aids, you can read it here.
I think the analogy is pretty close. Some people have a mild hearing loss and could do without their aids, same as some people can do without their glasses.
ReplyDeleteGoing to the other extreme, there are people who can't function without either.
I've written a bit recently about how hearing aids should be more like televisions!
Nice blog you have here.
Cheers,
Steve.
I was fitted for hearing aids a week ago. I also bought new glasses. I appreciate both enhancements to my middle age ears and eyes but it's not the same. The new HA's are a tremendous improvement. I wouldn't consider not wearing after being able to hear most of what people are saying to me.
ReplyDeletehttp://aboomergetsnewears.blogspot.com/
don't think that the 2 are the same. I've had glasses for nearly 40 years and hearing aids for about a year. With glasses I could see better immediately, but it took me 3 months or more to get used to wearing and hearing with my hearing aids!
ReplyDeleteRegards
Ian
I can appreciate some similarity, in that my mum's eyesight is not fully restored by glasses either. With her glasses she can see that the big thing 50 yards down the road is a...bus, perhaps (I can see it is a number 57 going to X). Without them she would struggle to recognise me standing next to her. Her glasses also have to be custom-made and cost as much as some (cheaper) hearing aids; last time she got them checked she asked the optometrist if it was time to get a white stick and a labrador, and they said "not quite". I know this is fairly unusual in terms of wearing glasses, but it does happen and people think it's weird that she still can't see perfectly even with her enormous expensive glasses.
ReplyDeleteI only have mild hearing loss and it has only been apparent for a few years and I was given hearing aids two years ago, so for me the glasses analogy works for me but I can see why it would be different with hearing which is worse than mine, however it does make explaining my hearing loss to peers much easier, especially as glasses are understood more widly amongst teens.
ReplyDelete