DEAFNESS
What is deafness?
It is a disability that occurs when one is not able to hear sounds and people talking.
How can you loose your hearing?
Some children develop deafness while in the mothers womb. Others develop after being born.
What causes deafness after a child is born?
The commonest is the conditions that might occur at or during birth e.g.
- Premature child(weight below 1.5kgs)
- Infections occurring during birth.
- Injuries to the child including lack of oxygen at birth.
- Medicine given at birth that may affect the ears.
- Yellowness of the eyes occurring at birth and persisting
Conditions occurring after birth include:
- Infections e.g. Measles, mumps, meningitis etc.
- Injuries to the ear and head.
- Too much noise in the ears.
- Family (inherited) deafness.
- Infections of the ear.
- Some people have only a slight hearing problem, others have a greater one and others cannot hear unless shouted to or even not at all.
- Sometimes one ear is affected alone.
- They keep requesting you to repeat.
- Keenly looking at your face.
- Making mistakes when answering back.
- Not actively participating in group discussions.
- Asks others not to speak too softly.
- Not interested in group discussion.
- Setting the TV or radio volume too high.
- Setting the volume of the phone high and shouting while talking.
- Feeling embarrassed in a group for missing conversation.
- Getting very tired due to strain of listening.
- Withdrawing from group activities.
- Friends withdrawing from the person with the problem.
- Frequent arguments with family over loud volume setting.
- Loss of opportunities( Education, Business,Marriage, Employment etc)
- High cost and prolonged management of hearing problems(Hearing Aids, speech therapy etc.)
- Inability to develop language and speech leading to "deaf-mute" situation(in children who are deaf before developing language)
- Low self-esteem and resulting psycho-social effects particularly depression.
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