I have moderate hearing loss, and wear hearing aids Is it going to hinder my career choices?

[peggotty]

I am considering what sort of things I'd like to do as I'm planning to retrain next year when my ds goes to school. One of the things I am interested in is speech and language therapy. I feel like it is ridiculous that i am thinking of it with hearing loss but is is one of the careers that really interests me (along with Occupational Therapy). It's fairly ridiculous to consider SLT as I will probably need to be able to have perfect hearing won't I? I haven't worked since I had dd (who is now 6) and my hearing loss happened after I had her so have no experience of working with it. My hearing aids obviously improve my hearing a reasonable amount, and they are very good digital ones, but I can still miss things that people say or subtle sounds. God, I feel so pissed off about it!

As someone with moderate/severe hearing loss, I think it should be feasible.
I know little about SLT except from being on the pointy end as a child, but I'd have thought understanding anatomy and physiology and how sounds are produced would be more important as long as you can get the general gist. I think SLTs practise in individual rooms so the patient can hear the therapist well, so that should help. A radio aid like an fmGenie to amplify the patient over background noise might be needed, but you've got experience up till recently of good hearing so you know what sounds sound like - the course might be more tricky but that's what DSA is for.

I have to admit that professionals with clue about deafness working in the speech/audio/occy therapy sector are sorely needed, but I doubt it would be harder than any other profession!