Earshot

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Real Stories

Earshot

I was diagnosed with a mild to moderate hearing loss at three years of age and given my first pair of hearing aids when I was 10, as my hearing declined. You can imagine how out of place I felt as a child sitting in an audiology clinic surrounded by images of elderly people. At the same time I was also referred to a special needs teacher. All it took was a couple of sessions for me to get the impression that I would never be as smart as my peers because I couldn’t hear everything. Meanwhile my parents were told I would ‘never be a party girl’, as though they were supposed to be comforted by that idea.