When you lose your eyesight you lose contact with things. When you lose your hearing you lose contact with people.

If you believe someone you care about has a hearing loss, you are in the right place. This guide is here to help you understand and support them.

Hearing Loss

Everyday we're exposed to numerous sounds and noises, which we attune to effortlessly. This becomes much more difficult with a loss. For example, having a conversation in a noisy room can prove near impossible. Such issues can impact on the confidence of the individual in regards to social settings and thus they may choose to avoid them.

In speech, certain syllables are easier to pick out than others. Soft sounding consonants, such as "s" and "f" are more difficult to hear as they are of a higher ptich As the high frequency hearing goes first, your loved one might be missing out on certain vowel sounds. The gaps they miss in words they then may fill in themselves, which can lead to misinterpreting the content of a conversation. This becomes worse in noise, so the indivdual is forced to resort to lip reading. If the person talking does not face them directly, or moves away, then the individual will lose the conversation entirely.

The following pages will help you identify if your loved one has a loss, provide you with advice on how to support them, and also how an audiologist can help.