Psychological Support for People with Hard of Hearing, Acquired Hearing Loss, and Auditory Processing Disorders — A Secondary Publication

This paper discusses the psychological support available for hard of hearing and acquired hearing loss difficulties. Specifically, it shows the psychological support that has been available to people with hard of hearing and listening problems, including those who became hard of hearing after acquiring language, those with mild to moderate hearing loss, those with unilateral hearing loss, those with an auditory processing disorder, and those who do not have a physical disability certificate. This paper also proposes support for people who have hitherto been unlikely to access such support and describes the current status of efforts to make support available in Japan. This paper covers the psychological support provided by specialists, by people who are close to the individuals in question but are not specialists, and by other people who are hard of hearing. Support by people with hearing loss can be divided into three types: self-help groups, meetings for people with hearing loss, and “Tojisha-Kenkyu,” groups that research self-support. Each of these forms of psychological support is described, and the current status and the barriers to the provision of support by people who are hard of hearing are described in detail. As future tasks, the author notes the tasks of how to maintain the cohesion of the various groups, empirical research on the effects of psychological support, and the need to raise greater awareness and disseminate information about hard-of-hearing people’s meetings that engage in psychological support activities.