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Hearing is one of the traditional five senses which normally refers to the act or ability of perceiving sounds by detecting vibrations via the ear. The ability to hear is integral to listening.

 People with hearing impairments are frequently described as ‘hard of hearing’ but the term ' deaf'  has become accepted as an umbrella term that covers a wide range of hearing loss and includes not only the volume of residual hearing, but also the frequency of sound that the person can hear. Someone with a high frequency sound loss will be better able to hear men’s voices and consonants, whilst someone with a low frequency sound loss will be better able to hear women’s voices and vowel sounds. Very few people experience absolute silence.

However, hearing is more complex than simply perceiving sound. These days many deaf people use hearing aid equipment which is likely to be used in conjunction with lip reading, and further supplemented by the interpretation of body language and other contextual aids to communication.

Digital hearing aids use a complex sound processing system. Each aid is programmed specifically for the individual, depending on their type and pattern of hearing loss, and therefore some frequencies of sound may be amplified more than others. They have a number of different features, such as providing less amplification of loud sounds than quiet sounds and reducing steady states of background noise automatically; however, unlike using spectacles that correct vision to within the normal range, hearing aids do not automatically ‘correct’  hearing. It is the brain that interprets the sound as speech, so even if the hearing aid provides the ear with the ‘missing’ sounds, if the person has a permanent (sensorineural) hearing loss, they still may have difficulty with speech discrimination. This, of course, varies between individuals and may depend on how long they have had a hearing loss and how successfully their rehabilitation is after they have had their hearing aid fitted.

Although most people rely on hearing in the following employability skills, this does not mean that people who are deaf or hard of hearing cannot possess these skills; rather, they may need reasonable adjustments to practice to enable them to develop or evidence the skills. 

Please click on the links below for a generic description of each employability skill that may be affected by limited hearing.

• Oral Communication
  
• Teamwork
  

Click on the links below to read about the effects of limited ability on the specified skills and for adjustments to practice/inclusive strategies.

• Hearing and Oral Communication
  
• Hearing and Teamwork