THE SOCIALIZING ROLE OF HEARING DOGS

The relationships between hearing dog ownership and the owners' levels of loneliness, changes in social interactions with people, and life s tress were studied retrospectively by questionnaire in a sample of 38 hearing dog owners and a control group of 15 prospective owners. The h earing dogs fulfilled the owners' primary expectation of alerting them to sounds. A sense of security, their second highest concern, was als o addressed. Owners felt safer when they were alone with their hearing dog than before obtaining one. Companionship was the third-rated reas on for acquiring the dog and owners reported being significantly less lonely after receiving a hearing dog (P < 0.01). Most owners and prosp ective owners described a role of the hearing dog as changing interact ions within the family. Owners also felt that the dogs changed their i nteractions with the hearing community and neighbors, whereas few pros pective owners foresaw this effect of the dog (P < 0.01). Apparently s temming from the disability being more obvious, owners also scored low er on a life stress score than prospective owners (P < 0.02).