I had a dear aunt who was born severely deaf nearly 100 years ago.
Her first hearing aid came in a suitcase about the size of an old time doctor’s bag.
Through the years, she always got the latest hearing aids as they were developed. She picked up speech because when they were kids, she and my mother would go out to the outhouse and my mother would put her lips on my aunt’s ear and scream at the top of her lungs. My aunt always spoke with a speech impediment, but people could understand her. She managed to support herself very well as she was a very talented hair dresser.
She’s been gone for about 10 years now, but I still miss her.......I wish she would have had the opportunity to try this new technology.
In my opinion, she had it worse than me because she never learned American Sign Language and she was never involved in the Deaf Community so she never really had support in coping with her Deafness. And she struggled in keeping up with conversation when there was a large number of people in the same room, which I noticed during family reunions.