I do not remember the exact moment that I lost my hearing. It wasn’t like misplacing a set of keys. "Oh, that’s where I left my hearing! It’s been under that darn couch the whole time." I’m not going to one day be able to hear the birds chirp or teakettle whistles. And while I’ve come to accept that, others aren’t so willing.
After reading statistics in a magazine about hearing impaired children ranking behind "normal" children in school, I became disappointed. Not in the hearing impaired children, but the people compiling these statistics and the educators. Someone should be speaking on behalf of the bright kids who are struggling with hearing loss. I was one of these children and no one spoke up for me.
My hearing problem was diagnosed in 1986, during the first month of second grade. I was beginning second grade already feeling somewhat self-conscious. I had just gotten my first pair of glasses, plastic pink frames with a black, elastic sports strap. In October, it was time for the annual hearing and sight check. That’s where they brought in an eye specialist to make you read the letters off the charts and a hearing specialist that put headphones on you so you can listen to a series of beeps in several pitches and identify them. Little did I know how familiar I was going to become with those beeps.
Several days later, a note goes home with me stating that my mother should take me to a hearing clinic for a more thorough examination. My mother became upset, like any mother would if their child might be less than perfect. And I had to deal with the fact that I may have failed my first test; a test that I couldn’t study for.
We went to the clinics and I was put in an isolation booth with headphones listening to more beeps. To make it more fun, I pretended to be on a game show called "Name That Beep". I became a returning champion and almost won a toaster, but I missed the tone.
During a discussion about my situation, my mother told me that I mispronounced certain words when I was learning how to speak, or made up my own words. It was often joked that I was the illegitimate child of Elmer Fudd.
And if getting used to wearing glasses wasn’t enough, now I had to adjust to another life-altering problem. Being hearing impaired requires a lot more than just dealing with the matter, you also find yourself explaining it to others. My mother went with me to school on the first day until I started high school, to explain to my teachers that I had a hearing impairment. She told them I required a little extra attention, perhaps be seated in the front of the classroom. We had a whole presentation planned out, complete with a spectacular light show.
The teachers that once saw me as a bright child with potential suddenly treated me quite the opposite. They would talk slower to me, which was more frustrating than before. It doesn’t matter how slow you say the word "Boat", it’s still going to sound like "Coke" to me. This made spelling tests a pain in the ear. My teacher would make up sentences to go with the spelling words for the week. Well, my sentences would differ from what the teacher would read aloud. "My brother went to the market to buy a loaf of bed and a quart of elk." But at least the words I used were spelled correctly.
To be fair, my hearing impairment isn’t as severe as most others. I just lack the ability to hear high pitches like whispers or dog whistles. I’ll never know if the bell tolls for me. And if someone asks me to put on my coat, I’ll respond, "But I didn’t bring my goat."
A few years after learning to read lips, I tried hearing aids. I ended up with the big clunky ones that hooked around the ears. There was much conflict between the hearing aids and my glasses. And I got some guff about them at school after acing a spelling test. One of the kids in class claimed I passed because alien signals were beamed through my hearing aids and gave me the answers. Eventually, the hearing aids went in the closet and I gave up on trying to explain my situation. I was tired of being treated differently just because I am hearing impaired.
Despite the fact that I was seven years old before anyone picked up on my hearing, my grades were still high and I was able to keep up with the other students. What people need to understand is that hearing loss does not necessarily equate with learning disability. It’s more of a hindrance.
When I reached high school, I gave up on trying to explain my condition. I noticed a drastic change. I was treated as a normal person again. I succeeded in my classes, joined the school’s newspaper and working my way to editor, and graduated #60 out of 301 in my class.
These days I function as a normal member of society. I rely on the closed caption on television for dialogue that I might miss otherwise and read lips everywhere else. The only difficultly I face is watching dubbed Kung Fu movies. And I still can’t hear those dog whistles.
