My friend tried to explain to me she was reluctant to get her hearing checked because if she did need a hearing aid, it would be embarrassing. Now I can be as vain as the next person, but this was news to me.

I've needed eyeglasses since elementary school when it was discovered my headaches were not so much the result of the stresses of fourth grade as they were from constantly squinting to see the chalkboard. I switched to contact lenses in high school and now alternate between my glasses and contacts and enjoy an equal love/hate relationship with both. My vision is poor, and I need an aid to see well enough to function, and I've never felt a stigma attached to needing and wearing glasses. Why are hearing aids viewed so differently? Maybe I'm naive, but I don't understand this phenomenon.

Perhaps society associates hearing loss with aging, but poor eyesight is just something that happens. Children typically don't lose their hearing but many need glasses early in life. I thought that our society's appreciation and respect for the aging process would have evolved to a point where necessary items like hearing aids would be filed under "No Big Thing" by now.

I understand being upset about needing a hearing aid; they do seem to be a herald of growing older, they need upkeep, there is expense associated with them and any extra maintenance in life is never welcome. All these feelings also could be connected to the need for reading glasses later in life but people seem completely OK with that.

After the illuminating conversation with my friend, I started to pay closer attention to my own reactions to people with hearing aids. Egads! I am ashamed to say I am guilty of visually discriminating against them by staring just a split second longer particularly if the person seems too young. I never look twice at someone wearing glasses (unless the person has made an unfortunate frame selection) but I am one of the very people my friend is afraid of - a hearing-aidophobe.

Accepting the differences in people is no easy task, but I want to strive for more than acceptance. I want to stop even noticing things such as hearing aids, wheelchairs, prosthetics or whatever it is that people need to live their lives to the fullest. People accepted me in the fourth grade when I showed up at school sporting the single most unattractive pair of glasses ever manufactured - the least I can do is return the favor.

By Judi Langolf
http://www.thetimesherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060110/NEWS01/601100313/1002