Helping A Child Avoid Hearing Aid Anxiety By Making Them Look Cool

Hearing aids can help children with hearing problems live a happy and normal life. Unfortunately, many children have anxiety associated with wearing a hearing aid and struggle to wear one without feeling awkward. Thankfully, it is possible to make hearing aids look cool and fashionable.

Anxiety Is A Common Problem With Children And Hearing Aids

While children don't often have to wear hearing aids, it can still be necessary for some who suffer from hearing problems. A good hearing aid can help a child learn how to talk from a young age and avoid the difficulties associated with learning how to talk without one. However, anxiety is actually an unfortunately common problem associated with children who have hearing aids.

For example, one study tested hearing-impaired children who wore cochlear implants and hearing aids and compared their anxiety to children who did not have a hearing impairment. What they found was surprising: the children with cochlear implants and those with a healthy level of hearing had around the same level of anxiety. But what about those who had hearing aids?

The report found that children who had hearing aids had much higher levels of social anxiety associated with their hearing impairment. Their parents also found they were anxious at home. Much of this anxiety was associated with the way hearing aids stood out. However, decorating hearing aids can keep them from standing out in a negative way.

Decorations Are Available For Hearing Aids

One interesting thing about hearing aids is that people have transformed them by adding fun hearing aid accessories that make them more appealing to purchase and use with children. For example, some have decorated them with paint (avoiding putting the paint on delicate areas) and even hung earrings from them. In this way, the earring didn't stand out as much, but looked like an integrated design choice.

It is also possible to purchase sleeker hearing aids that don't stand out so much from the ear. These hearing aids fit inside of the ear and don't present as large of a visual as others. Some clever people have even decorated hearing aids to look like a "communication device," such as an earpiece from police or even from some kind of alien or fantasy world.

There are many cool ways to transform hearing aids into a fashion accessory that make children feel more comfortable wearing them. The only limit to the possibilities is the imagination and avoiding interfering with the operation of the hearing aid. 

Share