1. “Living with Hearing Loss”
Catherine M. Christianson
April 27, 2015
Introduction to Audiology
Dr. Keith Darrow

2. There are many things that humans take for granted. When we get a sore throat, we
dream about no longer feeling that scratchiness when we eat or drink. When our arm falls asleep
at night, it is terrifying, and yet we know sensation will return shortly. Different than the
example I gave above, when the sense of hearing is lost from a person permanently, in reference
to an acquired hearing loss, the interpretation of the environment is different. The fear regarding
daily tasks is consistent. One prevalent thought for the person with hearing loss may be that their
sense will never come back. They may imagine all the things they will not be able to do.
Suddenly, the person is keenly aware of how important hearing is to the ability to interact with
the environment. A person’s other bodily senses become more heightened, and unobservable,
psychological and physiological changes within the body completely alter your interpretation of
everything in your environment. Cortisol skyrockets upon social interaction opportunities. Daily
anxiety levels are elevated. Suddenly deciding to order a coffee becomes a monumental task.
Upon subjecting myself to an approximate 30dB conductive hearing loss, my experience
was that of fear, anxiety, and overall social isolation. I found myself hesitant to speak to others
because I was scared I would be talking at a strange volume, either too loud or too soft. I was
aware that I probably looked strange having earplugs in my ears. I imagined that others
perceived me as a girl who obviously did not want to be bothered or had some strange
masochistic motive to go about my day without hearing what was occurring in my environment.
Either way, I was aware that I was different from others around me.
I remember one occasion in high school that changed my perception on the effect of
having a hearing loss. My experience was that of a unilateral conductive hearing loss due to a
sinus infection that traveled to my ear. My right ear drum perforated, and as a result, I couldn’t
hear out of my right ear at all and lived through a weeks’ worth of excruciating pain. As a singer,
being able to hear well is essential to learning how to match pitch and the ability to hear yourself
sing the correct notes. Whenever my voice was compromised, not being able to breathe and
speak at normal pitch and quality was really frustrating for me, however not being able to hear
made me aware of a new level of vulnerability. Because it was a unilateral hearing loss, I could
still interact with my environment, in school in particular, but I still very vulnerable as I felt that
my overall hearing ability was compromised. I talked to my friends and teachers less, couldn’t
sing as much as I wanted to, and these two things alone made the week miserable.

3. I started my conductive hearing loss experiment with ear buds in the library, because I
needed to complete work on a couple essays and PowerPoint presentations. Immediately I was
aware of how quiet these ear buds made my environment. In this case, my conductive hearing
loss was bilateral. How nice! I should wear these all the time, I thought. However, this feeling
slowly but surely turned to dread as I questioned, what if someone asks me a question and I just
ignore them? I imagined that they will think I’m being extremely rude. What if someone got in a
fight with me because of it?! This was probably not likely, but the fact that I even thought of
those things is something a person with normal hearing would never consider. All these thoughts
occurred to me as observed that others talking around me sounded muffled, I could barely hear
myself typing (which I normally think of as quite loud), and that I could hear myself breathing.
These observations were strange, new, and frankly distracting. I assume a person with a
hearing loss would get used to the environment sounding this way. The above conclusion,
however, leads me to thinking that person with hearing loss might make different decisions
regarding their actions versus a person with typical hearing. For example, I wanted to order that
latte, but I didn’t. I also kept wondering to myself how loud I really sounded as I breathed or
typed. And I wasn’t going to dare talking to the person next to me about anything, also in fear of
talking at an abnormal volume. In fact, I saw a guy near me look around, as if he had a question.
It turns out he needed a piece of paper and asked a person next to him. I noticed he looked at me,
but decided against it. Was it because I had ear buds in my ears or for another reason? Possibly a
combination of the two, but the point is, the hours I had the ear buds in were consequently hours
of social isolation. Of course if there was an emergency, I could communicate, but how often
does a person live through emergencies? Not often. The daily interactions we live through are
seemingly meaningless but make up the very fabric of our social engagements. Without them,
our communicative exchanges drop drastically, and research shows the lowered social interaction
is a predictive factor for depression and other subsequent issues. If this conductive hearing loss
was not temporary, I would predict that I would be a very different person than I am.
Research
Conclusion Statements:

4. Resources
Stevenson, J. C. (2010). The relationship between language development and behavior problems
in children with hearing loss. Journal Of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 51(1), 77-83.
Pittman, A., Vincent, K., & Carter, L. (2009). Immediate and long-term effects of hearing loss on
the speech perception of children. Journal Of The Acoustical Society Of America, 126(3),
1477-1485. doi:10.1121/1.3177265
Verté, S., Hebbrecht, L., & Roeyers, H. (2006). Psychological Adjustment of Siblings of
Children Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing. Volta Review, 106(1), 89-110.