Rebecca A Withey: It can take time to embrace your hearing aids 

“How can I help her to wear her hearing aids more?” She asked me.

Curious, I probed as to why the ten year old girl didn’t want to wear them. I discovered that not only was she the only person in her school class with hearing aids but she was the only person she knew who had them. She hadn’t socialised with any other deaf hearing aid wearers and therefore had negative feelings about looking ‘different.’

I understood this completely. In my primary school I was also the only child who had hearing aids and whilst it wasn’t the appearance of them that bothered me so much back then, in secondary school I did become self conscious of how I looked with these big bulky beige hearing aids sticking out of my ears.

I asked the parent more about the girl’s deafness level. How did she usually interact in day to day life? Was she managing comfortably without them?

The answer was yes. The girl has a moderate hearing loss and therefore only missed some high frequency sounds and if there wasn’t too much background noise she could follow instructions and what was being said quite easily.

The mother mentioned how the girl complained that the noise level in the classroom was uncomfortably loud with her hearing aids despite the teachers insisting that all noise was kept to a minimum.

Reflecting on my own experience again, I understood this. Hearing aids amplify sounds and they can sound strange, robotic and even harsh on the ears.

At one point in primary school my teachers noticed I developed a habit of blinking excessively and they eventually worked out that anytime I heard a ‘loud’ noise, this was uncomfortable for me and I would blink in response to the discomfort.

Fast forward to the age of 18 I eventually became a regular hearing aid wearer due to a multitude of reasons and circumstances. Nowadays I can’t live without them. But my hearing aids and I did not always have a love affair.

When I was little I could hear ‘enough’ to manage and so the natural sound from my own ears felt comfortable and just right for me. Hearing aids distorted this and certain high pitched sounds such as plates being knocked, a bell or a telephone ringing would literally feel as though they were piercing my brain.

This was also back in the day of analogue hearing aids where the volume was easy to control so if I did wear my hearing aids (usually when my teacher of the deaf visited me) the volume would be firmly turned down to the lowest setting.

In secondary school we were ‘forced’ to wear our hearing aids along with an ugly phonic aid. Being amongst such loud noises everyday would trigger headaches and fatigue I’d often need a nap when I got home.

As soon as I finished school, I would yank my hearing aids out.

Ahhh. Peace and quiet.

Then when analogue hearing aids were discontinued and I received my first digital hearing aids, everything sounded suddenly robotic and flat. I also couldn’t control the volume setting as well anymore.

As my deafness progressed, I could hear less sounds naturally and relied on my hearing aids more to hear sounds around me. My brain – which had grown up hearing sound – adapted well to this.

I started to then enjoy my hearing aids and feel more appreciative for what they gave me – the choice of hearing sounds if I wished to!

Hearing aids don’t make me hearing – I will always be deaf – but they do offer me the chance to access sounds around me that otherwise I would be oblivious to. Having that choice feels important to me.

So, regarding advice I would give to a parent who is worried about their childs reluctance to wear their hearing aids, here are a few pointers that I’ve put together:

• It really does help to see other people who are hearing aid wearers so the child doesn’t feel so alone. Whether it’s by meeting real life role models or viewing deaf hearing aid wearers on the television, seeing and normalising hearing aids is really important.
• If a child is reluctant to wear them, offer fun suggestions to ease them in gently. Are there quiet times in your childs day where they might like to pop them in? Would they wear them for 10 minutes to listen to songs or stories, and you can make it fun asking them to listen out for funny or strange sounds?
• Can you make them look more attractive? Coloured moulds, decal stickers are all good ways of doing this!
• Read or learn about the technology behind hearing aids. Do they understand why they have them and how they work? Learning about the science behind hearing aids can help a child see how cool and clever they actually are!
• Remember – hearing aids are only supposed to be a tool, they’re not a communication method. If your child has extremely negative feelings towards hearing aids, my personal view is that it would be detrimental to force or push these on them.Do they have other access to communication? Can they use sign language, lip read or use other ways that they might feel comfortable with?
• Finally, don’t worry too much about the issue and chat to other parents of deaf children if you can. You will find that all deaf children are different and thus have varying preferences and attitudes towards their hearing aids or implants.You’re not doing a bad job if your deaf child is refusing to wear technology. Listen to them, work with them and be patient.

I hope the above helps you if you’re a parent who has similar concerns. Speaking from experience with my own daughter, it’s important to empathise with a deaf child and understand how they’re feeling.

Hearing aids aren’t a ‘fix’ and therefore you shouldn’t rely only on them to facilitate communication.

There are countless ways a deaf child can learn to communicate and hearing aids – however useful they may be – are just one tool. Some deaf children accept the wearing of them whereas others don’t.  However your deaf child feels about them, don’t beat yourself up about it.

Normalise hearing aids, make them fun, explain why we wear them and offer them to your child. Whatever your deaf child decides to do then will be just right for them.

Rebecca A Withey is a writer and creative artist based in the Midlands. She fronts the all deaf sign performance group Unify and is the Assistant Editor for The Limping Chicken. Rebecca is a Deaf, bilingual BSL user passionate about music and telling stories. Find out more at www.rawithey.com