In a deaf/hoh community where most people have enough hearing loss to need hearing aids or cochlear implants, unilateral hearing loss appears to get little attention. Who are the people with unilateral hearing loss? They are the ones who can hear normally in one ear, but the other ear is impaired.
I myself have had little exposure to people with unilateral hearing loss. One hearing impaired mother of a deaf boy, did not appear to understand me if I spoke into one of her ears. She kept turning her head so that the "good ear" would face me.
Adults and children with unilateral hearing loss have their own special needs and techniques for accomodating those needs. A web search turned up the following resources on unilateral hearing loss:
- Management Guidelines for Children with Unilateral Hearing Loss - McKay, S., & Iyer, A. (2005, May 24). Management guidelines for children with unilateral hearing loss. The ASHA Leader, p. 4, 10. At the top of the page is a link to a bibliography of articles on unilateral hearing loss.
- Unilateral Hearing Loss in the Classroom - This article from Hearing Health magazine (vol. 15, no.4) focuses on the difficulties associated with unilateral hearing loss.
