Can a deaf person hear with their hearing aids on?

A common that I get asked and I see on Google is whether a deaf or hard of hearing person can hear with their hearing aids on?

The short answer is the dreaded “it depends”.

The long answer is that it’s complicated.

But it’s important for everyone to answer that hearing aids are not a solution. The key word is “aids” i.e. they can aid us to help better not make us hear as hearing people can do.

To learn more about the complexity of wearing hearing aids, you can watch the video below…

…listen to the podcast…

…or read the transcripts below.

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Transcripts

Can a d/Deaf person hear with their hearing aids on? Well, yes and no and I thought you’re not going to like it.

It does depend. So before I get into the yes and no part, the one thing it does depend on is fact that for example, what is that person able to hear?

So if that person is mild/moderately deaf, then that’s one thing. If that person is profoundly deaf, that’s another thing.

Everyone is different and at the same time what type of hearing aid they have because they are all in different shapes and sizes, and because they’re all designed to pick up different types of sounds.

For example, for me, I’ve got the hearing aids that is also engineered by the audiologist to help me pick up those higher pitches sounds better because I am completely deaf to those high pitches sounds.

So for another person it might be something different.

It might be the low pitches sounds or maybe to help them to hear better, a little bit better in the noisy environment. That’s okay.

But if I give my hearing aids to another d/Deaf person, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to benefit from that.

It might make it worse.

It just like when you think about it, if you wear glasses and then you give the same glasses to another person, it might actually make it worse for them, it’s the same idea. Everyone has their own prescription.

Everyone has their own hearing ability or non-hearing ability as well.

And also depends on the environment that you’re in. If it’s a noisy environment, especially then it’s going to be almost impossible for a lot of people to be able to hear what they want to hear if they can hear at all.

So it does depend on a lot of thing.

But I did say, can a person hear with a hearing aid?

Well, number one, yes, because it would depend on what hearing aids they have.

What can they hear?

What they can’t hear that for example, for me it helps a little bit but it’s not going to make it perfect and here is the thing that people should be aware of is that hearing aids do not make things perfect, does not make it the same as a quote “normal hearing person”.

So that’s one thing you need to be aware of is that when you are wearing hearing aids, it’s not kind of make it exactly the same as a hearing person, but at the same time, hearing aids might not help a person, d/Deaf person, because it might make things worse for them in certain environment.

So for me, for example, if I am in a noisy place, there are times where I just want to t ake it off because it amplifies certain things that I don’t want to hear or it makes things too much annoying for me, my head, headache.

In general, I don’t like wearing hearing aids.

I do it because I just have to put up with it and do my best and bear with and just to get by in certain environments and sometimes that works but other times that doesn’t work.

And I have talked about in a separate video, you can check it out in the description, but I don’t like wearing hearing aids, but I do it at same time when I do wear it, it’s not a solution. It’s not a solution.

People need to be aware of that, so when I wear it I hear a certain thing, but then when I wear it, I also don’t hear certain things as well.

So that’s why it comes to the answer: can a d/Deaf person hear with hearing aids?

Well, yes and no. Maybe “it depends” is the answer.

There are too many factors to take into consideration. The big thing is every d/Deaf person is different.

Every hard of hearing person is different. How they react to it, different, how they feel about it, different what sound they can hear or can’t hear is different.

So there’s no one answer for sure for that question. It’s just not going to work.

So does that make sense to you? I hope you got that answer.

If it doesn’t, if you need any more answer to be clarified, let me know. Just comment in the page, in the description, and let me know if you have any questions around that topic.

In the meantime, I hope to speak to you again soon.

Take care!

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