About this blog
Are you between a rock and a hard place when it comes to hearing? You weren’t born deaf, deafness arrived post-lingual and with hearing aids or a cochlear implant you’ve managed to survive in the hearing world. All of you experiences, interaction with family, friends and associates revolve around using and hearing spoken English. Being able, with certain limitations, to discriminate spoken words, appreciating music and hear environmental and man-made sounds is a vital part of your life.
But then things change. For whatever reason, the aids you depended upon to hear no longer deliver sufficient understanding. You now need to really concentration, look for any speech reading clues, and know the context of the conversation to have any hope of understanding. Introduce some background noise, multiple participants, rapid shifts topics, an accent, poor diction or bad lighting and your comprehension dips towards zero.
The term Assistive Technology (AT) is used herein in a broad sense and includes devices, software applications, services and the encoding method used to transfer information to the device, or between devices. There are many different combinations of AT that can benefit the deaf and the aim of this site is to gather information and user comments about them.
At the outset, it must be stated that nothing contained in this blog is intended to replace medical and audiological assessment and any resulting advice, treatment or prescribed hearing aids of any kind, that might be recommended. For this reason assessment of primary types of hearing aids is generally not included. However, some of the inbuilt features and accessories that hearing aid manufacture’s offer can be considered as AT and thus fall within the discussion parameters of this site.
Without excluding any particular deafness classification most of the AT included herein will be mainly applicable to the deaf, i.e., post-lingual deafened people and overall, relevant to older children and adults. Furthermore, because deafness varies enormously in it type, severity and the age of onset there will be significant differences between what AT’s are applicable to whom.
While medical and audiologist have their role, many deaf people gain invaluable experience in using assistive devices to improve their hearing in specific situations. For example, when using the telephone, watching TV, listening to the music/radio and of course dealing with the ubiquitous problem of hearing in noise deaf people face challenging situations and often adopt their own effective ways of using AT to help them hear, or at least to get some understand what is being communicated or broadcasted.
So, this is what the site is about; a collection of information about AT for the deaf and mainly provided by the deaf. Hopefully, over time and with the input from others the site will provide a useful resource for information that will assist us, the deaf, to participate better in the hearing world.
More Information
To gain more information about the site’s author, how the content is structured and what features you can use consult the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page, link here.
Contact me
Use the Contact Page to either email the author, or complete a Send Message form, link here >>>
Are you between a rock and a hard place when it comes to hearing? You weren’t born deaf, deafness arrived post-lingual and with hearing aids or a cochlear implant you’ve managed to survive in the hearing world. All of you experiences, interaction with family, friends and associates revolve around using and hearing spoken English. Being able, with certain limitations, to discriminate spoken words, appreciating music and hear environmental and man-made sounds is a vital part of your life.
But then things change. For whatever reason, the aids you depended upon to hear no longer deliver sufficient understanding. You now need to really concentration, look for any speech reading clues, and know the context of the conversation to have any hope of understanding. Introduce some background noise, multiple participants, rapid shifts topics, an accent, poor diction or bad lighting and your comprehension dips towards zero.
The term Assistive Technology (AT) is used herein in a broad sense and includes devices, software applications, services and the encoding method used to transfer information to the device, or between devices. There are many different combinations of AT that can benefit the deaf and the aim of this site is to gather information and user comments about them.
At the outset, it must be stated that nothing contained in this blog is intended to replace medical and audiological assessment and any resulting advice, treatment or prescribed hearing aids of any kind, that might be recommended. For this reason assessment of primary types of hearing aids is generally not included. However, some of the inbuilt features and accessories that hearing aid manufacture’s offer can be considered as AT and thus fall within the discussion parameters of this site.
Without excluding any particular deafness classification most of the AT included herein will be mainly applicable to the deaf, i.e., post-lingual deafened people and overall, relevant to older children and adults. Furthermore, because deafness varies enormously in it type, severity and the age of onset there will be significant differences between what AT’s are applicable to whom.
While medical and audiologist have their role, many deaf people gain invaluable experience in using assistive devices to improve their hearing in specific situations. For example, when using the telephone, watching TV, listening to the music/radio and of course dealing with the ubiquitous problem of hearing in noise deaf people face challenging situations and often adopt their own effective ways of using AT to help them hear, or at least to get some understand what is being communicated or broadcasted.
So, this is what the site is about; a collection of information about AT for the deaf and mainly provided by the deaf. Hopefully, over time and with the input from others the site will provide a useful resource for information that will assist us, the deaf, to participate better in the hearing world.
More Information
To gain more information about the site’s author, how the content is structured and what features you can use consult the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page, link here.
Contact me
Use the Contact Page to either email the author, or complete a Send Message form, link here >>>
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