According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Among adults aged 45 and over, hearing difficulties increased with age among men and women.” If you’re in this age group and are considering hearing aids, you may be wondering how you can help your grandchildren understand your new devices and how they help you. We review how below.
Talk to Them About Your Hearing Loss
How much detail you give your grandchildren about your hearing loss will depend on their age and attention span. For a very young child, you can explain that older people’s ears often don’t work as well as younger people’s ears. If your grandchild is older, you can explain the factors that contribute to hearing loss, such as age, noise exposure, other health conditions and certain medications. You can also educate them about how they can keep their ears healthy by wearing earplugs when they do noisy activities.
Explain How Your Hearing Aids Work
If your grandchildren are interested, you can then go into detail about how your hearing aids work to help you hear. You can tell them that the microphone picks up sounds in your environment and send the signals to the processor, which amplifies the sounds to the exact level your ears need. Next, sounds are delivered to your ears via the receiver or speaker. You can also show them that a battery powers their device, much like batteries power their favorite toys. If they are old enough and you are comfortable with it, you can let your grandchildren hold your hearing aids so they can explore them themselves.
Discuss Communication Strategies
It’s common for people with hearing loss to have an especially difficult time hearing the voices of young children, as it’s often higher-pitch sounds that are the first to go. To communicate well with your grandchildren, tell them about the communication strategies you want to use with them. This may include having them say your name before they start talking, making sure you’re both in the same room facing each other when they say something important and taking turns speaking so nobody is interrupting or speaking over someone else. Tell them you may need to ask them to repeat or rephrase what they say sometimes, especially when there’s a lot of background noise like at the playground in Medal of Honor Park.
For more information or to schedule an appointment with a hearing and communication expert, call Premier Medical Group today.