Growing up, it’s important for children to feel included and recognize similarities in themselves and others. Children with hearing loss can sometimes feel different, especially when they wear hearing aids and their friends don’t. Dolls with hearing aids are becoming more popular, as brands such as Barbie, American Girl Dolls and Lego have all added dolls and figures with hearing aids in the recent years.
However, finding dolls with hearing aids still isn’t easy, especially if the hearing aids are meant to look realistic. One woman, however, is changing that, by custom making hearing aids for dolls and soft toys for deaf children.
Inspiration for Dolls with Hearing Aids
Anne Vandebosch didn’t always make dolls with hearing aids. The Belgium resident, who works in a hearing center, got the inspiration one day after reading an online forum for parents of deaf children. In the forum, the mother talked about being distressed because her daughter kept pulling out her hearing aids and she didn’t know what to do to convince her to keep them in.
“I gave it some thought and concluded that the child could not understand why she had to wear them as she didn’t see anybody else around her doing that,” Vandebosch said. “She must have felt quite lonely with her difference. I thought then that if at least her best friend (her favorite doll) were just like her, she may accept them more easily.”
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