The Opinions of Persons with Hearing Impairment on the Help of Assistive Devices - Hearing Aids

Introduction: The article deals with reviews and ratings of people with hearing impairments, measuring the effectiveness of hearing aids in facilitating communication with the surrounding world of hearing majority. It outlines the importance of assistive aids based on the partial results of the research that relates to the elimination of communication barriers of people with hearing disability. Methodology and materials: The article presents partial results of the research for which a custom questionnaire was designed, according to a model of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health - ICF. This classification, as opposed to ICD-10, takes into account the consequences of the diagnosis in the social environment. It monitors not only the state of health but also individual differences of the impact of hearing impairment on the quality of life. The research explores the importance of using a hearing aid in communication, compares the quality of speech recognition with and without using the assistive aid. Also, it focuses on the ability to talk with more people, and to what extent people with hearing impairment have difficulty listening to lectures or radio without a hearing aid. Discussion: Based on the results, we concluded that hearing aids cannot restore the hearing ability as we know it in hearing people. Therefore, the assumption of the hearing majority that hearing-impaired people need no further intervention after being given a hearing aid, is incorrect. Generally, it cannot be argued that hearing aids are really providing effective support in elimination communication barriers in persons with high hearing loss. Conclusion: People with high hearing loss do not usually use hearing aids as they are no longer helpful to them, and people, whom we refer to as "hard of hearing", do not suffer from hearing loss at the level that the criteria of the Social Welfare Law would recognize as eligible for allowance for higher quality hearing aids.