The impact of hearing loss in the life of adults: A comparison between congenital versus late onset hearing loss

Aim of the Study: The aim of our study was to compare the impact of hearing loss in the life of adults who had congenital hearing loss with that of adults with acquired adult onset hearing loss (auditory neuropathy). Methodology: The quality of life scale questionnaire was administered on two groups. One group consisted of 10 adults with prelingual bilateral severe to profound hearing loss identified before the age of 3 years and who were using hearing aids and had received regular intervention for speech and language development by a qualified speech language pathologist. Second group consisted of 10 adults with auditory neuropathy. Results and Discussion: Wilcoxon rank sum test was used to compare the domains across the groups and the gender distributions between two groups were analyzed using Fisher's exact test. The results revealed that differences between the adults with early-onset hearing loss and late onset hearing loss was statistically significant for most of the domains. The results indicated the fact that accepting a hearing loss during adulthood leads to more psychological trauma than adjusting and living with the hearing loss from the early years of life. Loss of hearing is quite traumatic to adults. Psychological trauma that they undergo is as important as their physiological problem and psychological referral to a clinical psychologist may be beneficial to many of them.