Jessica  on July 24th, 2009

It doesn’t.

cdeafiem  on July 25th, 2009

Some deaf people (they may call themselves deaf or hard of hearing, whichever) have enough hearing in their ears so that hearing aids may be of some benefit to them (this is not always the case, sometimes a hearing loss may be severe or profound enough that hearing aids are of no help, but a cochlear implant might if one should choose to go in that direction). Now, as for a completely deaf person that has no hearing at all in their ears, hearing aids are absolutely useless, although cochlear implants might help if they choose to get one (it will of course, depend on their background education, their understanding of language, etc.)

Myself, I have a severe-profound loss in my right ear. But, I have enough hearing in that ear that I can hear most things with a hearing aid. Most of the time I can pick up on sounds or noise, but speech is difficult to understand without visual support. As for my left ear, it is completely 100% deaf and hearing aids has never been of any help in that ear.

Every deaf/hard-of-hearing person have different levels of hearing in their ears.

[EDIT] Adding to this a bit. For those who want to get a cochlear implant to hear, sometimes they will be advised to wear hearing aids until the surgery date to keep the hair cells in the cochlea stimulated so that person could hopefully get better results with the implant once the implant has been activated. But not all cochlear implant centers do this.

J'adore  on July 25th, 2009

No, if you are completely deaf then no hearing aid will help you hear, Conductive hearing loss, is when you are still able to hear certain sounds and frequencies. This usually happens when a person suffers some sort of injury to any part of the ear… A hearing aid would benefit them, to help make up for the damaged drum, canal or ossicle.

This is such a huge project and there are so many types of different hearing loss that it’s very hard to list them all. But if you look up hearing loss or hearing impairment you will find a wealth of information.

More so than you will get on here. Deaf people have the possibility to hear if they can be repaired surgically, but in most cases they will not ever hear…

blackcatkizzy  on July 28th, 2009

yes it works most of the time if you have new batteries in it is the best way to hear properly if you are deaf

kimberly_mccachren  on July 29th, 2009

I have a profound hearing loss, and I have wore hearing aids since I was almost 1 year old, now at the age of 35 I am not wearing them anymore. With the hearing aid it helped me a bit with the lip reading part, but not to hear things. However now I don’t wear one because something happened inside of my ears that I can’t stand the aids anymore, hopefully I will be able to wear them again. Every person with a hearing loss is different with aids, some are able to use them, and some don’t bother with them at all.

Hearing Professional  on July 29th, 2009

Think about it for a minute. There are people labeled as blind who can still see shadows or flashes of light or see things with a VERY strong magnifier. To be considered deaf you have to have a profound hearing loss which means that you can barely a sound that is at least 90 decibels or louder(which is pretty loud). Just because someone is categorized as deaf does not mean they hear NOTHING – just that they can hear very very little. So yes a hearing aid can help alert them to sounds in their environment, although it does not usually help too much with speech understanding. Usually they learn to lipread very well.

quizikin  on August 1st, 2009

Ok, it seems like some of these answers may have just stired up some more questions…

Basicly, all hearing aids can do is amplify what ever residual hearing is already there. The majority of people who are labeled as Deaf still have some residual hearing in thos cases the hearing aides can help.

Cochlear Implants do not work on residual hearing, in fact the surgery for the implant will often destroy what residual hearing is left and replace it with a computer simulated alternative, this can be affective in some cases, particularly cases where the person has had some residual hearing before the implant and is somewhat familar with sounds.

As a more direct answer to your question, If you are Deaf wearing a haering aid may help some of the time, it all depends on your level and degree of hearing Loss, in My case I have a Moderate high Frequency hearing Loss, I wear hearing aids in Both ears that are programed to compensate for that, in simpler terms it means that the hearing Aides I wear amplify the higher frequency sounds (higher Pitched sounds) around me so they level out my range of hearing.

There are some people who are “completly” deaf, where as, they have no residual hearing in those cases hearing Aides usually do not help and it is often rare that a cochlear implant will help much either. A good example for this would be in an Older movie that if you can Find it I would definitly recomend watching it, the title is, “Your Name is Jonah” IT is about a child who was born with profound hearing loss. Ask your teacher about the movie, it might be a good one to watch as a class, if not that one, a Documentary was done a few hears ago about the Cochlear Implant called “Sound and Fury” it might help your understand the issues about the Cochlear Impant a little better as well

I know I seemed to throw a lot at you, but I hopped it helped a bit?