Difficulty hearing: How is your daily life affected?

A person who has acquired hearing loss seldom knows where in the hearing system the problem is located, but will, in most cases, feel that their hearing no longer functions the way it used to.

Everyday situations may become difficult to cope with: things said that are misunderstood more frequently than before; other people’s speech becomes indistinct, it is increasingly difficult to understand what the grandchildren say; door bells and telephones are frequently ignored and sounds in nature have almost disappeared.

The hearing impaired will start noticing that it becomes more and more difficult to follow a conversation when many people are present or in noisy surroundings and that it becomes increasingly more difficult to localize sounds. Furthermore, the hearing impaired may be surprised by no longer noticing warning sounds in traffic or signals from house hold appliances.

Finally, the hearing impaired person often finds that a number of everyday sounds have gradually disappeared.

Speech Communication

Speech communication implies that we alternately speak and listen to what others are saying. When we speak, we unconsciously hear our own voice- not in order to understand what is being said but for the brain to use the hearing feedback to control the strength of one’s own voice.

This applies especially to difficult situations, for instance, outdoor conversation or when speaking in a large room or having a conversation in surroundings with background noise. In such situations, the speaker will unconsciously use both vision and hearing to evaluate how loud it is necessary to speak in order to achieve optimal communication in the given physical environments.

For a person with hearing loss, it is more difficult to control the level of one’s own voice. Therefore, when you meet someone who speaks unusually loudly in various situations, it may be an indication that the person’s hearing is beginning to fail.

Speech communication is important throughout one’s entire life

It starts in infancy when a newborn baby from the very beginning is bombarded with sounds- especially speech sounds and continuous speech- partly in order for the neural connections in the hearing system to mature and partly for the linguistic competence and perception of language to develop in a normal way.

For an infant, there is a limited period of time to acquire the foundations of language. From the first year of the child’s life and up to the age of seven, the possibilities gradually decline for the hearing system to develop and for acquiring effective language skills and varied perception of language.

Later on in life, speech communication plays an important role in our everyday lives.

Speech is an essential part of our communication with other people and it is important for the development of social skills as well as for the education of children and young people. Furthermore, a good prerequisite for acquiring knowledge through reading of books and other texts, for instance via the computer, and of course, for acquiring foreign languages.

For most people, hearing loss will therefore greatly affect their everyday lives, especially their social interactions and for young people the hearing loss may influence their possibilities for effective learning in school and of getting a higher education.

For an in-depth assessment of your hearing from one of our highly qualified audiologists, call Attune Hearing today on 1300 736 702.