Do hearing-impaired individuals need more sleep?

Question

I'm a hearing-impaired individual, but because I was born with this disability, I never researched it because it was never "new" and "exciting" to me, but a friend recently informed me that hearing-impaired individuals actually require more sleep than most because their brains are constantly operating on a higher level as they have to work harder to interpret sounds, etc. For most of my life, I have been on the lethargic side of things, but I was wondering if this is a factually accurate statement. It makes logical sense to me, but can someone point me in the direction of research?

On average, what is the optimal amount of sleep a hearing-impaired individual needs? When was this discovered?

Answer 1

A hot topic in hearing research right now is listening effort. The basic idea is that is that individuals with hearing loss need to use additional cognitive resources to process sounds. There is also evidence that mental fatigue impairs physical performance. While I think this evidence provides the basis for arguing that hard of hearing individuals might need more sleep, I am not aware of any direct evidence.