Environmental aids
Technology has facilitated the development of “environmental aids,” which help hearing impaired people to be safe and more independent. Below are some of the more important examples.
Alerting aids
Alarm clocks. People are woken up by clocks with flashing lights and / or vibrating pads under their pillow.
Telephone aids. Telephones can be adapted to have flashing lights, on ringing, a different ring tone frequency or can be connected to house lights or a lamp (to flash) if needed.
Doorbell alerting devices. Doorbells can be bought which are very loud or they can be connected to the house lighting system, which is activated on and off, when the doorbell rings.
Smoke alarms and burglar alarms can also be connected to strobe flashing lights or vibrating pads which are kept under the pillow.
Pagers can be connected by radio signals to telephone, doorbell, smoke alarms, baby alarm, burglar alarm etc; the pager usually vibrates and symbols or texts on the pager can indicate what is happening.
Telephones
Mobile telephones can be set to vibrate or flash and communication in both directions may be by text messaging.
Loops or links to mobiles enable hearing aid users to use some models of mobile phones.
Videophones are used through the standard telephone network and each caller can see the other on a small video screen. These are rarely used at the present time because of problems with speed of transmission.
Text telephones (for severe or profound hearing loss). These are known as telephone devices for the deaf (TDD) and are small keyboard telephones with a display screen, showing incoming and outgoing text. A text telephone is usually used at each end of the line but in the situation where a text phone is not at the other end, a confidential relay system called Type talk is used – (a human operator converting text to talk and vice versa).
Listening
Subtitling and signing on TV.In the third quarter of 2006, 95% of BBC1 programmes contained subtitles and 4.2 % of BBC1 programmes contained signing. The percentage is lower for other channels, and considerably so for cable and satellite channels.
Loop systems consist of a microphone, to pick up the sound source, a small amplifier and loop cable running around the edge of the room which sets up a magnetic field. This is picked up by the hearing aid which is switched to the “T” or “MT” setting. Loop systems can be used at home and also in public places, such as banks, churches, cinemas and theatres.
Hearing aids can also be used with a telephone, using a T switch, if the telephone is hearing aid compatible.
Infra - red listening aids. These are an alternative to the magnetic loop systems. The sound is transmitted to an infrared transmitter, which is beamed to a receiver unit, which could be in a neck loop (an alternative to looping the whole room) or headphones.
Personal listening aids. A microphone is put on the TV or stereo or given to someone else to speak into and the output is then fed into a neck loop or headphones.
Conversational listening aids are portable, small listening aids for conversations.
