Whether your teen has always dealt with hearing loss or whether they are just now having hearing loss come into their lives, there are a few ways you will want them to adjust to using their hearing aids. Most often, once children become teenagers, they find themselves embarrassed to have to use hearing aids in their day-to-day lives. In order to help your teen adjust and actually want to use the hearing aids regularly, you will want to know these four things to do to help them adjust:
- Go to Support Groups: If you are able to find support groups in your area, it can help your teen to become more comfortable with hearing aids since they will see other kids their age with hearing aids as well. This not only will potentially help your child become more comfortable, but it can also help you to connect with other parents who have children with hearing problems.
- ​Change the Appearance: If your teen doesn't want to wear the hearing aids because they feel they are embarrassing, see what you can do to change the appearance of the hearing aids. Your teenager's audiologist will be able to provide new color casings for their hearing aids, for example. If your teenager has had the hearing aids since they were a kid and they chose to have a bright-colored casing, the audiologist can change it to a neutral casing so they don't stand out as much. Or you can look at options for new hearing aids that may not be as bulky.
- Go to the Audiologist Regularly: Visiting your child's audiologist regularly will help your teen bring up any concerns that they are having with the hearing aids. For example, if your child gets frustrated when wearing the hearing aids during lunch time at school, for example, when the noise levels are really high, then they are likely not going to want to wear them. If your teen brings this up to his or her audiologist, the audiologist will be able to adjust the sound settings where it's needed or will be able to suggest hearing aids that may have better advanced technology that can help your teen adjust the volume as needed.
- Add Technology to the Hearing Aids: There are many technological features that you can add to hearing aids, such as a bluetooth speaker that connects directly with the TV or your child's cell phone so that they can use these things wirelessly. This can definitely be less embarrassing for your child.
By knowing some of the ways that you can help your teen adjust to life with hearing aids, you can be sure that they continue to wear them, which is important for socialization and their speech development.
For professional hearing services, hearing aids by Cambridge Audiology is one good choice; you can search the Internet for other choices.
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