Question

Is single sided deafness a disability?

Answer 1

I doubt there is any place that would count someone who is blind in one eye as “disabled”, either. However, the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation will help people with hearing loss – including unilateral hearing loss – to get devices to help them stay active in the workforce. It is a Federal program that is administered on a county level – with the unemployment office. The program does use income as a qualification criteria, but the guidelines are considerably higher than Public Assistance guidelines, since the program is for working people. For SSD, there is the CROS system, where a device is worn on the “dead” ear to pick up sounds from that side, and it transmits those sounds to a device worn on the “good” ear. Many of my patients love this system, others have become so accustomed to having just the one side that they don’t want to be bothered with wearing hearing instruments. It is a personal decision that is best based upon a trial period with the device – which is available for devices obtained through DVR, and is fairly standard through the industry when the patient purchases the devices out-of-pocket, where the majority of the purchase price is refunded if the patient returns the instruments within the first month.