Progress is being made. People walk around with all sorts of things hanging out of their ears these days, and nobody bats an eye. Apple and other consumer brands have entered the hearing technology space. Captions are everywhere. It’s a better time to have hearing loss than ever before. And yet, the stigma remains....
Continue reading at Living With Hearing Loss
✦ The floor
Discussion
Signed responses from readers of the wire.
No actionable clinical change — this is an opinion piece about social stigma; however, audiologists may find it useful as a conversation starter when addressing patient reluctance to seek help or wear hearing aids.
Persistent stigma around hearing loss remains a key barrier to help-seeking, and understanding it is relevant to how audiologists counsel hesitant patients.
- 01Societal stigma around hearing loss persists despite growing mainstream acceptance of hearing tech.
- 02Wider captioning use and consumer brand entry into hearing devices signal cultural progress.
- 03Hearing loss is still frequently used as a punchline in media and everyday conversation.
- 04The author argues that attitude change must accompany technology change for real inclusion.
- 05Blog is opinion-based with no original research or clinical data.
Societal stigma around hearing loss persists despite increased consumer tech adoption and widespread captioning.
opinionpartially supportedMainstream brands have entered the hearing technology market.
opinionsupported