Last Friday was World Hearing Day. Bet you didn’t hear about that.
Sorry, I had to throw in the pun.
The reason you probably didn’t know is because it is not widely publicized. Hearing loss is not something that is on people’s minds, that is, unless you are experiencing it yourself. But millions upon millions of Americans have a hearing loss and don’t even realize it.
Economically, hearing loss costs us a lot of money. Not being able to hear correctly has a significant impact on the lives of those affected both in their professions and in their personal lives.
According to the the World Hearing Day website, “Prevention, screening for early identification, rehabilitation through hearing devices, captioning and sign language education are among the strategies which can mitigate hearing loss and its consequences.”
Working with disabilities
I have a personal stake in the problem of hearing loss in a couple of ways. First of all I have a small hearing loss: my hearing is poor in the right ear at mid-range. It probably came from a loud noise at some point in my life, like working in heavy industry where I once toiled or shooting weapons when I was in college ROTC without any hearing protection.
The other way is that I went to college for four years to become an audiologist. You know, the guy that tests your hearing to see if you have a hearing loss. That was a long time ago, but I still remember the student work I did with profoundly deaf people that I met.
A disability is terrible no matter which one it is for the person who experiences it. But after talking to people who had multiple disabilities, particularly those who were deaf and blind during my years in the field, I never found one that didn’t tell me if they could only get one of the problems they had cured, it would be their hearing.
The fact is, without hearing, you are truly cut off from the world. I remember there was a requirement in the speech and hearing department when I went to school that we had to wear these headphones for a day that took away all the sound we could discern. Once you put those on, the world changed. I could see what was going on, and to a certain extent I could even communicate watching peoples body language and reading lips a little. But what I missed, and this was verified to me a number of times by people I met who had once had good hearing but had lost it, it is the little things that you miss. The sound of the wind, the tick of a clock, water gurgling in a stream; they all add to life. Without them, existence can become very lonely.
Understand that the next time you meet someone with a profound hearing loss, one in which they get very little sound transmitted to their brains to decipher.
What sound would you miss most?
One of the items that came out on Friday celebrating the day was a list of the sounds people like to hear the most. The top five? Well while my personal list varies from what the poll showed, it’s hard to disagree with any of what the majority of people who participated said.
Fifth was music. I know I love music and not being able to hear it would be very painful to me.
Fourth was waves crashing on a shoreline. Lake, ocean or pond, when you sit by a body of water it is relaxing to hear them go in and out.
Third was the words, “I love you” being expressed by someone(s) that really do love you. What could be more important to the human soul.
Second, and I am sure some people would have issues with this one, is birds chirping. There are certainly some birds that don’t make pleasant sounds, but overall that is a nice sound to wake up to in the morning if you have trees in your yard.
The sweetest sound
When I heard about this list I wondered what the number one sound was and I guessed before I saw it; children laughing. I listen to my grand kids and particularly my great grand daughters, and there is nothing so sweet as this sound. It is truly the best sound in the world. It doesn’t matter what language a child speaks, what the color of their skin is, what religion they are being brought up in or even where they live. Children laughing is the same all over the world.
That is by far the best sound I can think of.