Aids for persons with auditory impairments:

1. Hearing aids - Ferrer 

2. Cochlear implants - Gazzingan
3. Telephone access for persons who are deaf - Del Rosario 
4. Access to mobile phones for people who are deaf - Ferrer & Del Rosario
5. Technology for f2f communication between hearing and deaf individuals -
Salangsang
6. Alerting devices for persons with auditory impairments - Gazzingan
7. Assistive listening devices - Papa
8. Captioning as an auditory substitute - Salangsang
9. Basic principles of computer adaptations for auditory impairments - Salangsang
10. Aids for persons with both visual and auditory impairments - Ramirez

Assessment: Ramirez

TTYs  Teletype/Telecommunications device for the deaf/Text Telephone Devices

Technology for Face-To-Face Communication Between Hearing and Deaf
Individuals
1. Interpretype
- system consists of a preprogrammed laptop-style computer that is able to send
typed messages to other TTY units or a computer
- A built-in display shows the text that is received from the communication partner
and displays messages typed into its keyboard
- Advantage: simplicity
- Disadvantage: expensive than TTYs  ***some companies have developed
simple modifications to TTYs to allow them to be used as face-to-face
communication devices
2. Modified Simple TTYs**
- TTYs are interconnected, rather than being connected to a telephone line
- Once connected, they function like the TTY device: one person types and the
text shows up on the other person’s screen
- Advantage: technology for face-to-face communication is that it is simple to set
up, lightweight to carry, and intuitive to use  ****because many deaf individuals
have portable TTYs, the modification for face-to-face use is more cost-effective.
They still need to buy a second unit, but the total cost for both units can be less
than $600 and the total weight can be less than 3 pounds (1.5 kg).
Alerting Devices for Persons with Auditory Impairments
1. Smoke Detector
- one device is tuned to the frequency of a smoke alarm
- it responds only to that sound
- When the smoke alarm auditory signal is detected, the visible smoke detector
transmits a flasher, which can be connected to a standard lamp. The lamp
flashes as long as the smoke detector is active.
2. Telephone Alerting Devices
- include amplified ringers that plug into a standard telephone jack and provide up
to 95 dB of ringing sound
- another approach is to use a flashing light that is connected to the telephone line
 this can alert the person who is deaf that there is an incoming TTY call
- ***some systems have a strobe light connected to them; others use a table lamp
plugged into the alerting device
- ***The only modification required for these adaptations is a two-plug telephone
adapter to allow plugging in of both the adapted alerting device and the
telephone
3. Doorbells
- can be both directly wired into a flashing light and detected by a microphone and
then converted into a visible (typically a flashing light) or tactile (vibration) signal
4. Wrist-worn receiver
- ******for more general sound detection, there are silent alarms that can detect
any signal and then transmit to a wrist-worn receiver.
- This both vibrates and flashes a light to indicate that the sound has occurred.
- Some devices can accommodate 16 or more channels, and different lights flash
for each sound.
- A microphone and transmitter can be placed in each of the locations where an
important sound may occur.
- Ex: near the front door, another near the telephone, another in the baby’s room,
and a final one near the back door
- When a sound is detected at any of these locations, the wrist unit vibrates and
one light is illuminated to indicate which sound has been detected.
5. Alarm clocks
- generally are either visible (flashing light on a bedside table) or tactile (vibration
under the pillow)
- may either be built into an alarm clock (e.g., the entire face of the clock flashes)
or may detect the clock’s alarm and then cause the vibration or flashing light (or
both)
6. Traffic horns
- ***One of the major difficulties faced by persons who are deaf is the lack of
awareness of sounds associated with traffic
- ***Sirens, horns, and ambient traffic noise all contribute to our ability to drive.
- Traffic horns of different types (air horn on a truck versus a car horn), sirens,
railroad crossing gate, or train each have a unique sound and may require a
different response.
Captioning As an Auditory Substitute
1. Close Captioned Television and Movies
- Closed Captioning: When captioning is used in public media (e.g. television,
movie theaters). It is called closed because the words are not visible unless the
viewer has a closed caption decoder.
- Telecommunications Act of 1996 in U.S. resulted in FCC regulations requiring tv
broadcasters to provide closed captioning.
- January 1, 1998  New programming must be “fully accessible”. Fully accessible
means that 95% of the nonexempt programming must be closed captioned.
- All television sets currently being produced have a built-in closed caption
converter.
- Closed captioning includes movies, network news, comedies, sporting events,
dramas, and educational, religious, and children’s programming. In excess of 550
national advertisers have closed captioned more than 13,000 commercials

2. Real-Time Captioning for Education and Business Applications

A. Computer-assisted real-time (or remote) transcription (CART)
- For lectures/meetings where there is one deaf participant  CART can be
provided one-on-one where a stenographer translates speech into text in real
time and it is displayed on a monitor for the individual who is deaf.
- For meetings in which there is more than one deaf participant  the text output
is projected on a screen, generally from a computer.
B. Internet
- ***can also be used to assist deaf individuals with spoken language interpretation
- The stenographer has voice connection through the Internet to the
meeting/classroom and enters text with a stenotype machine.
- The text is translated through computer software to text, transmitted over the
Internet back to the classroom or meeting, and then read by the deaf individual.
C. Computer-assisted note-taking (CAN)
- A fast typist enters text with a standard computer keyboard and with use of
abbreviations to maximize speed of data entry
- As in the CART method, text is displayed on a screen
- The rate of entry is too slow for the speech to be converted directly to text, so a
summary is used. The accuracy of the summary is estimated to be in the 90% to
95% range.
- ****In an evaluation study, Youdelman and Messerly (1996) found that notetakers
found this approach to be superior to pencil and paper methods because speed
could be increased without sacrificing legibility, text could be easily edited,
printed copies could be made available to students immediately, and emphasis of
important points could be enhanced by bold, italic, or underline formats
- The teachers felt that the CAN approach helped students obtain more
information than they had with previous methods and that the printed method
improved spelling skills. Because CAN was applied to uncaptioned videotapes
and other media, it had an additional benefit.
- Students with hearing impairment  stated that CAN helped them understand
the material and keep up with the teacher.
- Students without hearing impairment  observed that it was helpful to glance at
the display as the teacher was talking to gain information missed orally.
Basic Principles of Computer Adaptations for Auditory Impairments

- ***Computer interaction is bidirectional, and the clinician must understand how

computer outputs can be adapted for persons with sensory impairments.
- ***Persons who are deaf or hard of hearing also may have difficulties in
recognizing auditory computer outputs, such as sounds or speech.
- Built-in options can increase usability by persons who are deaf.
- Major functions that are changed are the: use of visual or vibrating alerts in place
of auditory tones, captioning, and/or multimedia (movies, TV shows, and
podcasts).
- For the deaf in only one ear and want the full stereo experience presented at one
ear  conversion of stereo to monaural sounds can be used.
- Text captions can be displayed in place of sounds to indicate that an activity is
happening (for example, when a document starts or finishes printing)
- There are also apps for iOS, Android, and Blackberry devices that support
people with hearing impairment such as the following: support for sign language
transmission (high-fidelity video), alerts such as vibrating patterns that distinguish
 specific callers, alternatives to auditory alarms (vibrating or flashing alerts), and
TTY-type functions.
Access to the Internet When Auditory Information Is Difficult for the User
Microsoft Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange
- recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which include
accessibility for deaf and hard of hearing users.
- This standard simplifies captioning for developers, educators, and multimedia
producers and designers and is available to the public as an open (no licensing
fees) standard.
- This approach is like the use of closed captioning for television viewers.
- This is designed by the W3C to facilitate multimedia presentations in which an
author can describe the behavior of a multimedia presentation, associate
hyperlinks with media objects, and describe the layout of the presentation on a
screen.
- These features allow integration of timing of multimedia presentations into
hypertext markup language programs.

Assistive Listening Devices

-devices used by hearing impaired individuals for face-to-face conversation in
environments with loud noises or large group settings such as classrooms, churches,
business meetings, courtrooms, and broadcast TV.

1. Individual Assistive Listening Devices

-
2. Small-Group Devices
- For small-group meetings with several participants  the speaker and microphone can be
placed in the middle of the conference table (to pick up all the voices.)
- Small-group devices can have multiple receivers for one transmitter if there is more than one
person requiring amplification
- Digital FM systems pair the transmitter and receiver so that multiple users can each receive
private messages from different speakers. The specificity of digital transmission makes it
possible to have an increased level of security over previous analog systems. Each transmitter
and receiver is paired by the transmitter sending a coded key to the receiver.
3. Classroom Applications
Factors affecting Speech Perception in Classroom environment:
a. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR): relationship between the speech amplitude from the
teacher and the background noise. Recommended SNR of at least +15dB.
b. Reverberation time (RT): prolongation or persistence of sound as it reflects off
hard surfaces, specified as a time delay. Shorter RTs are better for speech
perception. Recommended RT values for classroom are lower than 0.6 seconds.
c. Distance from the speaker: As this distance increases, the sound level decreases
up to a critical value determined by the volume of the room, directionality of the
speech signal relative to the listener, and the RT

*** These factors indicate that a room that is acoustically well designed (low
noise sources, short RT) and has a uniform speaker-to-listener distance will be
most effective for children with and without hearing limitations. Classrooms
designed within these guidelines have been shown to positively affect academic
performance in reading, spelling, concentration, and attention

Sound Field Systems

- The teacher’s voice is transmitted to speakers located around the room,
so the teacher’s voice is presented uniformly throughout the classroom.
- The original systems used FM radio transmission. Recently, infrared (IR)
transmission systems have come into use.
- Advantage of IR systems: signal is contained within the classroom and
there is no interference between classrooms or from outside radio
sources.
- Sound from a teacher is typically at a level only about 6 dB above
background noise in a typical classroom. Sound field systems can boost
 this to 8 to 10 dB, which is a much more suitable SNR (Ross and Levitt,
2002).
- Effectivity of this system depends on sound acoustical room design to
maximize SNR and minimize RT.

Benefits of the Sound Field System:

- Increase speech perception
- Improve academic skills (reading, spelling)
- Address learning disabilities (e.g., attention).
- Use of ambient noise compensation (ANC): ANC uses digital signal
processing to automatically increase amplification if the noise level rises
temporarily because of factors such as a transient noise (e.g., air
conditioning starting up) or a decrease in the teacher’s speaking volume.
Adjustment for these changes in the ANC allows the sound field system to
maintain a constant SNR for the student.
- For children with more profound hearing loss, it allows direct transmission
to an individual student through earphones by coupling to a personal FM
system.
- Typically hearing students have also been shown to benefit from sound
field systems.
- Teachers benefit from greater student attention and less vocal strain.
4. Large-Group Devices

A. Hard-Wired Jacks for plugging in Earphones

- Advantages: Hard-wired systems have privacy (there is no transmission over
the air) and simplicity of technology.
- Limitations:
 rewiring a facility is expensive and, unless the wiring is done during
construction, it is usually not feasible.
 persons requiring the use of the assisted listening device are forced to sit
in a few predetermined locations (where there are earphone jacks)
B. FM transmitter-receiver setups similar to small-group devices

- FM transmission coil systems are similar to the homebased coil but with much
more powerful amplification. They have a lower level of interference and a
large transmission range.
- Advantage: the listener can sit anywhere within range, and they can easily be
wired into the normal public address system.
- Limitations:
 varying degrees of strength in the signals being received by the receivers
in different hearing aids.
 nonuniform transmission pattern resulting in unequal signal strength.
 C. Audio induction loops for transmission to hearing aids equipped with
telecoils

- Audio induction loop devices have their roots in Europe

- They require that the user’s hearing aid have an induction coil (telecoil).
- Major limitations of the induction coil approach:
 large amount of power required to drive the induction coil transmitter
and susceptibility to interference.
D. Other assistive listening devices
- developed for television viewing and for use as personal amplifiers
- Personal amplifiers are hard-wired microphones connected to an amplifier
and to earphones worn by the person who is hard of hearing. These are used
in hospitals and similar situations for temporary amplification when hearing
aids are not available or not worn.
- Television listeners are assistive listening devices that connect directly to the
audio of the television set and transmit the signal to a receiver by FM or
ultrasound. The user has earphones connected to the receiver.

Access to Mobile Phones for People Who Are Deaf

Mobile phones are used by people who are deaf to meet needs in six broad
categories:
- Social: most important
- Safety
- Communication
- Transportation
- Consumption
- Entertainment

A. Short Message Service (texting)

- Many people who are deaf rely on it.
- Deaf users of mobile phones indicated that touch screen keyboards, handwriting
recognition, and QWERTY keyboard layouts support SMS capability.
- Visual telephones are used to support sign language conversations.
- Deaf users would like this capability to be included in mobile phones.
B. Cameras located on the same side (as the display and large screens)
C. Text-to-speech
- for monitoring of speech input to the device
 - for improving communication with others
D. Speech-to-text
- for presenting received auditory content in readable form
E. TTY
- Some people who are deaf want to use their mobile phone as a TTY.
- This usually requires an adapter of some sort (often just a cable) and an
application that provides TTY functionality.
- Mobile phone apps that support TTY functions are available.
F. Other apps for mobile phones aimed to meet the needs of people with auditory
problems
- TTY functions
- Sign language communication
- Alternatives to auditory ring (flashing or vibration) with unique patterns for caller
ID
- Social communication apps to link deaf users with each other and with hearing
friends