I was 5 when I got my first pair of eyeglasses. I can still remember the exact moment that the world came into focus. I was awestruck at what I had been missing for my first five years. I spent the whole drive home reading the numbers and letters of passing license plates out loud to my mom.
I never again left the house, or even my bed, really, without the tools that let me see what I was supposed to. It never occurred to me NOT to wear glasses. (And given my propensity for falls, even with glasses, it would have been decidedly dangerous to wander blindly in the world.)
Until this week, I had simply assumed that just as people with eye problems wear glasses to improve their vision, then surely people with ear problems would simply wear hearing aids to improve their hearing.
But that’s not the case. Not at all. Millions of people are intentionally wandering around this world, unable to hear their spouse in a restaurant, the meow of a kitten, the whistle of a tea kettle, the priest in church, the cry of a baby and countless other sounds.
Hearing aids and other devices can usually improve their hearing the way a proper eyeglass prescription can give someone 20/20 vision.
But hearing aids got a bad rap decades ago and have yet to overcome the perceived stigma.
“Hearing aids were big, noticeable, ugly and they didn’t work,” Michelle Couture, an audiologist, told me this week. “You have no idea how many come in here for an evaluation and are amazed at how poorly they did on a hearing test. And yet, as soon as the conversation turns to hearing aids, they’re out of here. People absolutely refuse to even consider hearing aids. There’s still a stigma.”
But then I looked at the little girl sitting across from me in Couture’s office. Valyn Welter is 7 with long dark hair, a quick smile and confidence for miles.
And since she was 5, she’s worn hearing aids in both ears. Her mom, Rachel, has an app that lets her adjust Valyn’s aids for various settings, and there’s even a tiny microphone that Rachel can clip to her shirt collar and speak normally. Her voice then gets amplified directly into Valyn’s hearing aids.
“It’s amazing what they can do these days,” Rachel said. “But I know the stigma is real. My husband — Valyn’s dad — refuses to get healing aids. His own daughter has them and yet he refuses. It’s so frustrating, but it’s a real thing.”
After an hour in that office with Valyn, her friend Karma, also 7, Rachel and Dr. Michelle, as Valyn calls her, I was convinced this needs to stop. People need to hear as best they can and hearing aids are practically invisible these days.
Both my parents have them. (Oh, that’s a treat in a restaurant, when my dad needs to adjust his, but ends up connected to my mom’s via Bluetooth.) But they dial things in within 30 seconds and we can have a conversation.
I understand, no one wants to be different. But hearing rocks. And people who can’t hear often end up isolating themselves and that never leads to anything good, said Couture, who has a doctorate in audiology, and is way more fun than I had expected an audiologist to be. See? We were all tearing down stigmas and stereotypes this week.
“For most adults, as they age, hearing loss isn’t about volume; it’s about clarity,” said Couture. “And we can usually fix it, but only if people are willing. So I tell them I’ll see them when they’re ready. I’m not some used car salesman just trying to sell hearing aids.”
One look at Valyn, wearing headphones, and raising her hand properly each time Couture played a high-pitched tone in one of her ears, proved we can all learn a lot from this little girl — and her audiologist.
