Under the American’s with Disabilities Act (ADA), employers don’t have to provide personal medical devices, as they don’t count under the ‘reasonable accommodations’ guidelines. However, you may be asked to provide other equipment that works in conjunction with personal hearing devices, such as portable T-loops, especially if these affect your employee’s ability to understand speech at meetings.
As a hearing aid user myself, I can testify as to how useful they are. There are several different degrees of deafness and hearing loss, and hearing aids are offered for individuals across all five stages. Nevertheless, there is a massive difference between hearing aid users with profound hearing loss and hearing aid users with moderate hearing loss.
People with mild hearing loss may not need hearing aids, but they will probably still struggle with conversation or softer sounds. However, some may take advantage of a hearing aid prescription.
Hearing aids are usually prescribed in pairs, and it’s important to remember that they only amplify sounds; they can’t restore or fix lost hearing. For example, my hearing is much better with my hearing aids in, but I still can’t hear certain sounds, tones, or voices. Also, certain situations and high background noise levels make it harder to hear, even with hearing aids.
Someone with moderate hearing loss is more likely to use hearing aids, although they may still struggle with accents, background noise, and other things, such as telephone calls. I suffer from moderate-severe hearing loss, and on top of my hearing aids, I rely on lipreading and captions.
With hearing aids, it’s important to remember the broad spectrum of needs and disabilities the device's cover. Everyone’s different, and many hearing aid users also require transcripts, speech-to-text, captions, American Sign Language (ASL), lip speaking, or other communication aids. Someone with severe or profound hearing loss may wear hearing aids to help alert them to dangerous sounds but still not have enough hearing to follow a conversation.
Cochlear implants are controversial amongst the Deaf community, who see deafness as a differing ability, a culture, and a language. Devices such as hearing aids and implants are often frowned upon by the Deaf, as the community dislikes anything that attempts to correct deafness.
The difference between cochlear implants and hearing aids is that implants are surgically implanted into the cochlear and backed up by wearable devices. Hearing aids are merely wearable devices. Cochlear implants are usually only prescribed for profoundly deaf individuals, as the surgery destroys any residual hearing the person had left. Implants are popular amongst deaf children who are either born deaf or acquire their deafness at an early age. However, they are often strongly opposed by some in the Deaf community.
For employers, it may be helpful to remember that, under the ADA, personal devices like cochlear implants are typically not covered as reasonable accommodations, and you as an employer don’t have to provide them. However, employers should be aware of the types of devices employees may use and the fact that other accommodations, such as installing software that works with hearing aids or implants, loops, and captioning services − for example - may be required. Ultimately, employers should work closely with employees to find out what unique challenges they face and how they can be assisted to perform the essential functions of their job.
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