Listening-Related Fatigue in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students: Understanding and Managing the “Fatigue Factor”

Fatigue is often defined as a mood state, a subjective feeling of tiredness or exhaustion that reduces our desire to continue working on a task (Bess et al., 2020; Hockey, 2013). Fatigue is ubiquitous, something most adults and children experience when struggling to complete a long or challenging task. Most of the time, all that is needed to recover from the fatigue is a quick break or cessation of the fatiguing task. In these cases, the negative effects of fatigue are minimal. For some individuals, however, their fatigue experiences may be more severe and sustained. When recurrent, this kind of severe fatigue can have significant, negative consequences, especially for children. Severe fatigue is more common in children suffering from chronic health issues, such as cancer, diabetes, and obesity (Hornsby et al., 2017; Hockenberry-Eaton et al., 1999). Children with such health conditions who also suffer from significant fatigue tend to face additional academic and social struggles compared to their non-fatigued peers (Stoff et al., 1989; Berrin, et al., 2007; Ravid et al., 2009). But what does this have to do with children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH)? Evidence continues to mount suggesting that children who are DHH are also more likely to experience severe fatigue as a result of their listening and understanding challenges—a term coined listening-related fatigue.