Most people who’re severely to profoundly deaf (even with digital hearing-devices) will mention recurring exhaustion from “actively listening” all the time to communicate, to receive and remember daily facts, and to process at warp-speed detail that’s fed to you – in its incompleteness or entirety.
A multi-choice survey on the “Hearing Ourselves Think” blog by psychologist Katharine Cecilia Williams, has some brilliant questions on this same topic.
Read: “Why Is Hearing Impairment Exhausting?”
For this respondent, the single answer to these questions is “All The Above”. Read the text below the survey-box to get further insights to the challenges.
Listening Fatigue Exists And Is Real
This real “concentration fatigue” is described by UK-based Ian Noon, as being like “doing jigsaws, Sudokhu and Scrabble all at the same time”.
Read: Being deaf and dealing with concentration fatigue
For children and teens learning in mainstream classrooms, this fatigue is very real – and the frustration can emerge at the end of a school day when they get home. Some take off their hearing devices for a break after school – while others zone out in a quiet part of the house, or in their bedrooms simply to recharge their own energy.
Self-Pacing Personal Energy Is Crucial
In the later teens and college years, before moving to workplaces, students with hearing issues need to self-pace to find their point of discomfort, and to learn to know when they need time out, whether this is a 20 minute break, a night in, a day’s annual leave, a long weekend or bigger stretch of time off.
Parents, educators and employers should be aware that this concentration fatigue exists and is not an excuse for a person to shirk their duties, to miss deadlines or to perform below their threshold in a work role. Quite simply, their brains can temporarily be so fatigued that clear thinking and communication is not viable.
There’s irony in a deaf person needing ‘quiet time’ to recharge – but it’s vital.
More Reading
- Captioning: A Lifeline At Conferences And Seminars
- Disability Law News Journal: Deaf Children and Inclusive Education
- Video: how captioning benefits a deaf student in Albany
- Educational Supports Unlock Students’ Potential
- CART: Upskills for the job, and confidence for the future
