Hearing Loss and Employment
People who have a mild to moderate degree of hearing loss (hard of hearing) are mostly not obvious. Their hearing loss may only affect them in some situations, especially when it is noisy or when communicating with unfamiliar people and/or unfamiliar topics. Many Aboriginal people with hearing loss may not be aware that they have a hearing loss or, if they are aware of it, may be reluctant to disclose it.
Awareness of hearing problems
Recently when testing hearing in a remote community, people were asked before the hearing test how their hearing was. Some people were aware that they had some hearing problems. They were usually people who had more hearing loss in one ear so by making a comparison they were aware that they had some hearing loss in the other ear.
When people had a hearing loss in both ears that they'd had since a very young age, they weren't aware that they were hearing differently to other people. The degree of hearing loss and their experience of communication with a hearing loss was seen as normal.
Signs of hearing loss are not always obvious
Signs that hearing loss may be present are very commonly not recognised. People can be:
- shy and very easily shamed
- avoid things if they don't know what to do
- need more explanation
- not be comfortable with new people and particularly non Aboriginal people
- talk little, too loud or mumble
- dominate conversations and get frustrated and/or anxious when there are high listening demands.
Video clip about hearing loss
Stephen Torres-Carne works in an agency providing mediation and legal services for Aboriginal people.
For someone with hearing loss starting a new job can lead to anxiety and affect performance at work and other workers perception of your ability to do the job. In this video clip Steven talks about his experiences at work.
Video: Stephen Torres-Carne
Duration: 2.16 minutes
File size: 2.5MB
Requires Quicktime or Windows Media Player