By Fred H. Bess, Hilary Davis, and Benjamin W.Y. Hornsby

This article is a part of the September/October 2022, Volume 34, Number 5, Audiology Today issue. 

Fatigue is common in the daily lives of children. In most cases, the fatigue is mild and resolves spontaneously with minimal after-effects. However, for some children, the fatigue is more severe, persistent, and may be associated with significant negative effects, such as sleep disturbances, mood changes, poor school attendance, lower academic achievement, withdrawal from routine activities, and a reduction in quality of life and well-being (Hornsby et al, 2017). 

This kind of severe, recurrent fatigue is a primary complaint of children with chronic illnesses (e.g., cancer). Importantly, children with hearing loss (CHL) are also at increased risk for this type of severe fatigue and its resultant negative effects. In fact, the fatigue experienced by CHL can be similar to, or greater than, that experienced by children with other chronic health conditions (e.g., cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis) (Hornsby et al, 2017). 

Why are CHL at risk for more severe fatigue? The reasons are complex, but research suggests the fatigue experienced by CHL is consistent with predictions from Hockey’s general fatigue model, the Motivation Control Theory of Fatigue (Davis et al, 2021; Hockey, 2013). 

Briefly, this model suggests that fatigue is more likely to develop when high levels of effort are applied to challenging tasks, particularly when:

  1. The tasks are important to the individual and
  2. When the applied effort does not lead to successful completion of the task. 

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