Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Keeping Up With Someone Who Is Deaf

By Andrew Powell

Demonstrations were recently held to promote the new electronic hearing aids designed for the deaf. Four gatherings were centered on hearing impediments and this one was the closing assembly. A person has numerous options to choose from, there were cheap easy to install units, there were monitors that worked when they were connected to a house phone or doorbell, then there was the Telecommunication Device for the Deaf or TDD which was very expensive.

Writing messages is possible for the deaf through the TDD which has an integrated telephone and keyboard. Facilities for emergency services are becoming better equipped with TDDs being installed in most of them, as these will only function with other TDDs, having them installed provides unit owners with access to emergency aid.

Being deaf means hearing nothing at all and deafness is something that can begin at birth for quite a lot of people. Even if their sense of hearing is limited, the hearing impaired still has the ability to recognize certain sounds. There are times when the less costly machines become more useful for deaf people including the ones which use telephones or doorbells, the other devices simply made the volume louder on the hearing aids of the hearing impaired.

A relatively new device alerts you when you come within close range of any kind of emergency vehicle. An increasing number of emergency vehicles are equipped with transmitters with a range of 1500 to 1800 feet. When there are surrounding emergency vehicles, a motorist with a receiver will notice a flashing light on his dashboard. This can be helpful even to those with no hearing impairment who may not hear the sirens because they are listening to stereo or have air conditioners on, for example.

The manufacturer gives these transmitters to emergency vehicles for free, he is hoping to increase the number of receivers in private cars. More people are being influenced try these out as every receiver that is sold results to a $4 rebate. When transmitter usage started flourishing, one car maker offered to make receivers standard features for his cars if there are enough emergency vehicles that had transmitters. Part of the offer stated that he would be given exclusive installation rights for the transmitters.

Probably the best one yet was the wrist pager that looked like a watch. Summoning the wearer is easy as you only need to activate it via a telephone, doorbell, or call box known as the base stations. To know where he needs to be, four indicators representing the base stations are available in the pager.

Volume control was the main consideration for the devices for the hearing impaired and there was a set of headphones equipped with a very small volume control box. An inexpensive device for TV use allows a hearing impaired person to raise the volume feed to his headsets from the TV, without altering the main volume feed released by the set, preventing others who hear well from being hassled.

There was a bookstore owner who mentioned that having customers who were either deaf or had impaired hearing influenced him to delve into the various hearing problems people are facing today. Usually, he would present a couple of items that address the needs of those with hearing problems to a number of groups, he has already managed to obtain a lot of these items. Explaining the devices meant displaying instructions on a wired up board. If someone wanted to buy a device he presented, he will give the person details as to where it can be obtained.

It is not as easy for people who can hear well to understand how it is not to hear. Problems start as early as you wake up, no weather report and no idea whether or not your car is running smoothly in a cold day, waking up to the sound of an alarm clock may not even be a possibility.

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