The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is being criticised by participants after it refused to fund $10,000 for a hearing aid upgrade for a profoundly deaf man and instead gave him $15,000 for social outings. Mr Dobson, who lives in Rockhampton in central Queensland, had his first cochlear implants 15 years ago, and every few years the outside hearing aids — speech processors — need to be replaced. Last year, a new speech processor came on the market; it is the first of its kind that …