Hearing loss: Social isolation is often the most serious handicap

Ensuring that people with hearing loss are included in social communities is as important as providing them with the latest assistive technology. For many, social isolation is the real handicap in everyday life.

This is according to a new report from the Department of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen, which uses population and questionnaire surveys to find out how hearing loss affects everyday life.

The report focuses on participation in informal communities at work or school, and the conclusion is clear: hearing loss needs not be the biggest barrier. In fact, people who function well in social situations despite hearing loss fare significantly better than people with normal hearing who struggle to engage in informal social interaction.

"It is therefore crucial to develop environments where everyone with a hearing loss is included in informal social life on an equal footing with others. If we succeed, hearing loss may still be a burden, but it need not become a serious handicap in everyday life," says Inge Kryger Pedersen, Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology and head of the research project behind the report.

The social challenges

In the qualitative part of the project, the researchers have already shown how even small practical solutions can help to integrate people with hearing loss. Examples – already known but used and combined too rarely – are aids such as table microphones, speaking clearly and arranging school and meeting tables in a horseshoe shape so that everyone can see the speaker.

The new report examines the wider social challenges faced by people with and without hearing loss and the importance of socialising with colleagues or schoolmates. It is based mainly on data from the latest study, SHILD 2020, on the living conditions of people with disabilities, carried out by VIVE, The Danish Center for Social Science Research.

And there are clear links. For example, when people aged 16-64 are asked how much influence they feel they have over their own lives. Involvement in informal communities outweighs hearing loss in all age groups:

Figure: Impact of hearing loss and social participation on life empowerment

"The analyses confirm our hypothesis that the social community is very important. But we are still surprised that hearing loss itself is less important than social participation when we look at a wide range of social variables," says Senior Researcher Emeritus Steen Bengtsson from The Danish Center for Social Science Research, who is associated with the project and was responsible for the statistical analyses.

For example, hearing loss has a negative effect on monthly income of about DKK 1,500 for people aged 16-64, which is significant. But the effect is twice as high, about DKK 3,200, for people who do not participate in social life on an equal footing with others - both those with normal hearing and those with hearing loss.

Other examples of where social isolation has the greatest impact are in areas such as employability, mental and physical health, confidence to overcome problems and cultural participation.

More attention to social life

The challenges are also highlighted in the report by a supplementary survey of students at Frijsenborg Efterskole, a boarding school that offers educational programmes adapted for young people with hearing loss. The results show that informal socialising is not only a problem for hearing impaired students. A large proportion of the school's normal-hearing students are also challenged to such an extent that they need and benefit from an adapted school environment.

Including people with special needs is an ongoing task that requires initiative from both sides.

Overall, the report concludes that good interventions for children and young people with hearing loss should have a broad focus, looking at informal social life in the classroom and at school – or, if the focus is on adults, in the workplace.

But according to Inge Kryger Pedersen, this requires a basic understanding of how important social life is to well-being. This applies to people with normal hearing as well as those with hearing loss.

"People with hearing loss should know that they risk being excluded if they withdraw from social life. And the manager who works hard to include everyone in social life should not give up, even if he or she is not always successful. Including people with special needs is an ongoing task that requires initiative from both sides.

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