Famous people with hearing loss

Hearing loss often does not get the same attention as eyesight problems, yet it is more common than many people think. Today, 1 in 6 people in Australia and 1 in 4 people in New Zealand are affected by hearing loss. But hearing problems do not have to affect a person’s ability to achieve their full potential, or interact normally with family and friends. Check this list of famous figures in history who achieved spectacular things, and all without the aid of modern technologies and research.



• Beethoven - Beethoven began to develop hearing problems at age 27, and his hearing continued to deteriorate slowly throughout the course of his life, eventually becoming completely deaf before he died. Despite losing what he considered to be his most prized possession, his hearing, Beethoven composed hundreds of pieces of music, and is one of the most important and best-known composers in history. Biographers and historians have even suggested that his hearing problems were essential for his creativity, because they enabled him to listen to inner sounds without distraction.



• Thomas Edison - Although Thomas Edison lost almost all of this hearing when he was about 12 years old in both his left and right ear, hearing problems certainly did not stop him from developing countless inventions and technologies, such as the phonograph and the lightbulb, which forever influenced life as we know it.



• Hellen Keller - Keller was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. Despite being rendered blind and deaf from the age of just 19 months (purportedly due to an illness), she went on to become a famous and influential campaigner for women’s suffrage, socialism, and worker’s rights.



• Laura C. Redden Shearing - While she may not be a household name, Laura Redden Shearing was a deaf poet and journalist, the first deaf female journalist in the world. She was also a poet, and gained international respect for her poems, published in magazines such as Harper’s. She also wrote for such publications as The New York Times and the New York Evening Mail, usually under the pseudonym of Howard Glyndon.



These famous people excelled in their chosen fields without the aid of modern technologies or research into hearing loss. While hearing loss is more common than many people realise, it does not have to negatively impact on the lives of those who have hearing loss. Modern technologies such as cochlear implants greatly increase the communication and hearing abilities of those who have hearing loss.