Kathleen Frey is an academic adviser in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Frey, diagnosed with hearing loss at the age of five, shared her thoughts on hearing impairment.

What were your beginning experiences with hearing impairment?

I was born two months premature, and I had an infection in my lungs. The doctors gave me antibiotics, and they knew one of the side effects would be hearing loss, but it was either die or have hearing loss. I discovered I had hearing loss when I was staying with a neighbor, and she called out my name again and again and I didn’t turn around from the television. I got my first hearing aid at 6 years old.

When I was a student in college, I missed out on concerts and such. When I was 21, I was a camp counselor and I saw the kids playing in the water and splashing around. I felt like I never had those intimate moments with my peers. Until that point, I was in denial, but then I knew I could still have those experiences now – I just had to get over myself.

How did it feel to wear a hearing aid at such a young age?

The first ones – the dinosaur ones – I hated them. I did not like having them in my ears, and the kids would say stuff like, ‘Can you hear me now?’ I took them out as soon as I could. One time, my teacher found one of them on the floor. When I was younger, kids would tell jokes and gossip, and it would take me longer to process, so I missed out on a lot of jokes and gossip. I took speech therapy for three years in middle school – I never heard the “th” or the “sh” sounds. Most people with hearing problems also have speech problems.

Why do you think some people are reluctant to have their hearing checked?

One reason is hearing loss in the elderly is normal and even expected. A young person with hearing loss still is an anomaly. Also, hearing loss is difficult to detect. Babies born in Georgia in the early 1980s – like me – did not have their hearing checked in the newborn nursery. In my experience, it’s easier to develop fairly good coping skills such as lip reading and watching facial expressions to mask a hearing problem. Hearing devices carry a stigma that eyeglasses and braces have long since outgrown. Now we walk around with headsets in our ears. People still are reluctant to get their hearing checked in part because they don’t know how tremendously better they can hear with aid.

What would you advise to others regarding hearing loss?

People should embrace their hearing loss. This was my hardest lesson to learn. Do not try to hide it from others – especially not from yourself.

Hearing is a fascinating sense of the human body. If you think you turn the volume up a few clicks more on the television than you used to – go get your hearing checked. When conversations become inaudible to you in a loud restaurant, call an audiologist.