How To Achieve Hearing Equality with Personal Listening Devices

How To Achieve Hearing Equality with Personal Listening Devices

Innovative Hearing Devices
http://www.innovativehearingdevices.com or call directly at (619) 981-9822

      When communicating we pass along our thoughts, interpretations, emotions and our wisdom. Learning from one another is how our world works. Generation after generation we share traditions, crafts and culture.  Whether we like it or not, the older we get we find ourselves thinking, "I'm just like my Mother, now I have her allergies, or remembering how Dad loved tending his garden. He had trouble hearing and spoke loudly and bellowed at times saying, "I can't hear a darn thing, speak up!"
We learn through our senses.  In addition to sound waves filtering through our ears, hearing is linked with sight.  Communicating is comprised of facial expressions, hand gestures, spoken words and the shape of your mouth, ever changing to create different sounds.  Sign language is the greatest example of using gestures to have a conversation or respond to a question.  There is no prejudice against sign language, we have schools dedicated to teaching our children this important communication tool.  Children that are not profoundly deaf do not have the same advantage.  They are not treated equally and this could be rectified easily by offering them a personal listening device (ALD's) that would bring their hearing up to a normal range.  Many students would profit from the use of  a Personal Listening Device.  

     One in eight people in the United States (13% or 30 million) aged 12 years or older has hearing loss in both ears, based on standard hearing examinations.

   

 In this day and age most people have some sort of phone strapped to their belt or earphones listening to music, or a blue-tooth on the ears to talk on the phones without the use of their hands. Portable personal listening devices are also used. They have a microphone built in to the transmitter, clipped to the belt sending sound to a small ear bud in one ear and that is the listening receiver.  This appears to be just another device that most people have to block out the world; but in this case it is bringing the world right up close by allowing the hearing impaired person to hear and enjoy conversations all around them.  It does not have to be a direct line of signal, it picks up sound in a large circle around the person wearing it.

     Try watching people without hearing what they say, just observing people's gestures.  Hands on the hip with a rigid stance and serious face and you know someone's' lost their patience and about to blow their top.  Watching two people fall into each others arms, tears streaming down their cheeks you can feel their emotions.  But without hearing you can be wrong about what the emotion is. You can't see the truth behind such emotions without hearing it. With an assisted listening device you can clearly empathize and share in the moment. Could it be that there is a death in the family and they are finding solace in each others arms?  That same scene could be two people overcome with joy over the birth of a child or the news that a son in the Gulf Region has just been pronounced safe with no injuries after a period of no communication from their unit back at base.

     Accurate hearing is vital to understanding normal activities and conversations around us.  Personal Assistive Hearing Listening  Devices (ALD's) are a hug asset to the Hard of Hearing community. For the HofH - (Hard of Hearing), focusing on words alone without electronic devices just doesn't work.  People have different inflections of tone and volume.  Most people have more trouble hearing children and women than men.  With a hearing amplifier device, all sound is amplified and the volume can be controlled to fit the situation.  Each word is distinct and separate from each other, compared to natural hearing that has been reduced to a jumble of words not recognizable.

     Our history is unique to our place of birth. The details of monumental events are plastered all over the news and written in chronicles for us to read and appreciate.  Different religions and traditions make up the balance of who we are.  History shares catastrophes, wars, celebratory speeches and famous people contributing to history.  But what of our own lives?  We pass our history down to those we love with stories.  Having a solid base for living comes from sharing, laughing and re-living the success, bumps and bloopers of our lives. Funny times, sad times and the routine of life is shared with stories and taking time to speak to one another.  It's natural to stop including those with HofH.  After hearing "What", "Say that again", or just plain, "Huh?"  You get tired and stop trying to reach those with HofH.   What a loss!

     One in eight people in the United States (13% or 30 million) aged 12 years or older has hearing loss in both ears, based on standard hearing examinations.

     If every single person, of that 30 million, had a personal FM system; which included a transmitter, receiver and headphones and also an amplified telephone, we could start to equalize hearing. The electronic transmitter is equivalent to someone speaking and the receiver is equal to a person hearing.

Only about 10% of hearing losses are helped by surgery or other medical treatment.  90% of hearing losses can be treated with the use of hearing devices.

     It is mandatory that we change our attitude about personal listening devices in order to achieve better communication.  We should no longer worry about how they look or how people might judge you when you wear a hearing device.  What matters is a person using an assistive listening device is not complacent about the world around them.  They are seeking a way to stand up and be counted, to make a difference by participating in the conversation.

We should give them a hearty round of applause.