Science & Technology Addressing Deafness
Technology has the potential to greatly improve access and quality of life for Deaf people.
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[Edit]1 Hearing aids
(The original information provided here on hearing aids was excepted and adapted from "Hearing Aids: Points To Consider"
(http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=646772) by Paul Courtney. Courtney contributes articles to various publications pertaining to alternate Medicine, Herbal Medicine, Organics and is the main contributor to http://www.hearingaidsadvisory.com)
Hearing aids are devices designed to improve the hearing capabilities of those who have suffered a loss of hearing through damage to the inner ear. Hearing aids will not cause the profoundly deaf person to hear as a hearing person will, but they amplify the sounds surrounding the listener.
They come in many different sizes and are very compact, some are even able to fit into frames of your eyeglasses.
[Edit]1.1 What makes up a Hearing Aid?
There are over one thousand different hearing aids. Each has a microphone that receives sound, which is amplified using an amplifier and finally there is a speaker or receiver which sends the sounds to the user's ears, and most hearing aids use battery power to work.
In addition, there are other different kinds of hearing aids including digital, in-the-canal, in-the-ear, behind-the-ear as well as those that are placed on the body, and they can even be found in mono form or binaural form with the former being used for one ear while the latter sends the sound to both ears, the binaural is the first choice of more than half of those that use such aids.
There are a number of different factors that need to be considered before acquiring a hearing aid, it is highly recommended that you visit a specialist who will help you to diagnose what is the cause of your loss of hearing. Once this is known an audiologist will be able to assist you in deciding which type of hearing aid is best suited to your needs.
[Edit]2 Cochlear Implants
A Cochlear Implant is an electronic prosthetic assistive device that is surgically implanted in the skull. According to the USA National Institute of Health (http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih3/hearing/other/glossary.htm)
"An implant does not restore or create normal hearing. Instead, under the appropriate conditions, it can give a deaf person a useful auditory understanding of the environment and help him or her understand speech. The implant is surgically placed under the skin behind the ear. An implant has four basic parts: a microphone, which picks up sound from the environment; a speech processor, which selects and arranges sounds picked up by the microphone; a transmitter and receiver/stimulator, which receives signals from the speech processor and converts them into electric impulses; and electrodes, which collect the impulses from the stimulator and send them to the brain."
[Edit]3 Hearing loops
[Edit]4 Telecommunications
[Edit]4.1 Telephone amplifiers
[Edit]4.2 TTYs
[Edit]4.3 Text mesaging
- SMS on mobile phones (common in Australia)
- Sidekick pagers (common in the USA)
[Edit]4.4 Telephone and Video Relay Services
Australian Communication Exchange (ACE) (http://www.acenet.com.au)
Sprint Relay (http://www.sprint.com) and Sorenson Relay (http://www.sorenson.com) (USA)
[Edit]5 Alarms
Alarms that rely on sound can be modified to activate a strobe or flashing light to get the attention of deaf and hard of hearing people. Personal alarms may vibrate to notify the wearer/user.
Common personal equipment available that is already modified for use by deaf and hard of hearing people includes Alarm Clocks, Doorbells,? Fire Alarms,? Telephones? and Baby Alarms.?
[Edit]6 Braille print for Deaf-Blind
[Edit]7 Live captioning
For television news, functions, events, and conferences
[Edit]8 Pre-recorded captioning
Many television shows and advertisements, DVDs, corporate videos and DVDs, mainstream cinemas showing feature movies, and also many foreign movies, have English subtitles.
