My Hearing Aids Made Me a Target

The same hearing aids that helped me in the classroom made me a target on the playground, and nobody mentions that trade when they tell a kid to wear their devices.

I was bullied throughout elementary school for a handful of reasons, and the hearing loss was one of them. The hearing aids, the FM system, any piece of assistive technology I wore was something the other kids could see, and in elementary school being visibly different is the same thing as being vulnerable. The FM system had a bulky receiver and headphones, the hearing aids sat behind my ears, and the necklace ran a cord down my chest. Every one of those was functional, and every one of them was a sign hanging on me that said I’m not like the rest of you.

Kids who reject their devices are running a calculation. I ran it myself. A kid sits there weighing the benefit of hearing the teacher a little better against the cost of getting singled out and picked on, and with the reasoning of a seven-year-old the cost usually wins. So the hearing aids end up in the desk and the FM system gets conveniently forgotten, and the kid just goes without. The grown-ups see defiance, but the kid is making a perfectly rational call with the priorities he actually has.

I needed those devices, and I also needed to get through the school day without being torn apart for wearing them, and for years those two things were directly at odds. If a kid you know keeps leaving the hearing aids in the desk, ask what wearing them costs him at recess.

#LLHearingMyStory #HearingLoss #HearingAids #AssistiveTechnology