She are the Borg

So, our daughter has a minor-to-moderate hearing loss in one ear -- with the loss increasing in the higher frequencies.

The research findings are ambiguous as to whether or not to give her a hearing aid on that side. You only need one ''intact'' ear for learning speech and correct pronunciation. And she's still hearing ''stuff'' -- just, not as loudly as on the other side.

If she started wearing a hearing aid, there would be a slight advantage in terms of being able to tell what direction sounds are coming from, and therefore being able to focus in on specific voices in a noisy environment (like a restaurant, or at a party).

But, there are disadvantages: It would be an added thing for her to look after. Because they generally don't issue in-ear hearing aids (they look like cones) until you're a teenager, she'd have an over-the-ear aid -- which might have a bit of stigma to it. And, just like tape-recording someone talking in a room, using a hearing aid actually picks up a lot of audio ''gunk'' (background noise -- chairs scraping, dishes clinking, papers rustling) that you don't get with un-amplified hearing.

More importantly: because hearing aids are hearing-centric (meaning, they're designed to amplify the ''speech'' ranges, rather than the full audio spectrum), she'd gain more higher-frequency response -- but loose the bassy frequencies. So, her hearing on that side wouldn't be perfect: it'd be trebly, instead of bassy. This means that rather than hearing my speaking voice as bassy-but-muffled on that side, she'd hear it as clear-but-insubstantial (i.e. no bass). So, even with a hearing aid, her hearing wouldn't be symmetrical; just differently-imbalanced.

The audiologists told us that at this low level of hearing loss, it's totally up to the parents. Given that the findings are ambiguous (and non-critical), we're erring on the side of non-intervention.

The only up-side to her having an over-the-ear hearing aid on just one side: she'd look kinda like The Borg.


--GG