M0nica
Maremia
I don't get why Posters are complaining about something that may help youngsters to cope in schools.
If you overcame great difficulties, then hurrah for you.
Glad to hear that there is a now chance of better help for others.
A lot of people take a lot of pride in their success at overcoming difficulties - and I am with them. I admire people like that , but they tend to forget all those people who had the same difficulties, or rather remember them and feel superior and resent the idea that some of those failures could become successes with a little help from ther people or devices like this.
I agree. Thanks to an unusual and potentially very dangerous disease, l had major surgery on my left ear at the age of 10 1/2 and was permanently deafened in that ear as a result. I have had no directional hearing ever since. The advice in the seventies was typically bracing: “you have perfect hearing in your right ear and it will make up for your left ear.” In other words: just get on with it, so get on with it l did. The original disease had caused a permanent foul smelling discharge and, despite keeping it as fastidiously clean as possible, I was still very aware of it. A move to a different part of the country a few days before my eleventh birthday did not help. All this happened just pre-puberty, which, as we all remember, is not an easy time. I became very shy and self-conscious as a result. Looking back, I think I suffered a form of PTSD as a result. However, in the bracing seventies, such self-indulgence was never considered. These days, I would have been entitled to extra time in music exams for the aural section and would certainly have had concessions for the speaking and dictation parts of the languages O levels. The only concession I had was to be allowed to sit near the tape recorder in the French dictation exam. What l really needed, and would nowadays receive, was to be in a room by myself with the teacher reading the test at a slower pace and facing me so that I could lipread. The irony is that I love languages and a friend, who is a retired MFL teacher, has told me that I would probably have been really good at them if it were not for the hearing impediment. However, I went on to study music at a music college and have had a lovely career as a piano, violin and viola teacher and accompanist, now semi-retired. I have also worn two hearing aids for years. The irony is that l have perfect pitch. I would probably qualify as a perfect example of triumph over adversity and l certainly learnt the lesson of resilience at an early age. However, times move on and would l want today’s ten-year-old me to face all the challenges l faced with no help? Of course not. I have three charities l support above all the others and one of these three is the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS), founded in 2010, because l was a deafened child and received no help and I would hate the idea of children being in that position today.
