Left untreated, single-sided deafness can significantly impact a child’s development, listening and learning. It also reduces the ability to identify the location of a sound source or person speaking, particularly with background noise.
This is because additional effort is needed by children with single-sided deafness to be able to hear and localise sounds, which results in what’s known as listening or auditory fatigue. For students in classrooms, this means they’re then required to put in a lot of effort just to hear what the teacher says, before they can even start learning.
Cochlear implants have become a viable treatment option for single-sided deafness, as other hearing technologies such as conventional hearing aids or bone conduction devices typically offer little or no benefit and don’t allow true hearing through both ears.
Fifteen-year-old Dylan has experienced this firsthand, receiving a cochlear implant after facing a sudden onset of profound hearing loss in his left ear. In just three months after his left cochlear implant, Dylan saw noticeable improvement in his ability to localise sounds on his left side, and an improved ability to understand speech in noise.
