Overcoming Challenges: Technology

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Technology and assistive devices can be credited with much of the improved access to mainstream society experienced by people with disabilities, but the promise for tomorrow hints at participation not even dreamed of a generation or two ago. Minda Huebner (2002) helps us see into the future. "In my vision of tomorrow's world, I see many technological advancements that will ... enable people with hearing loss to understand things that do not have lips, televisions, telephones, and intercoms" (p. 9). Here some of the advances she envisions:

• Special glasses that show movie captions that are invisible to everyone else
• Telephones that show the words of conversations on mini-screens
• Waterproof hearing aids that let everyone participate in water fights, soccer in the rain, and swim meets
• Home computers that make all of the lights in the house flash and alarm clocks vibrate when the smoke alarm goes off
• Lights on all cars' dashboards to indicate when an emergency vehicle is near

Clearly, the possibilities are endless, but barriers can make it impossible for many to experience Huebner's dreams about tomorrow. The costs of assistive devices although they decrease across time, limit people's access to helpful equipment. As you might imagine, cost is a major issue for people who are deaf or hard of hearing; many are unable to afford improved hearing aids or the wide range of devices that would help them. Government agencies are usually not of much assistance (Trychin, 2001). Assistive devices can be grouped into four categories:

• Assistive listening devices
• Telecommunication devices
• Computerized speech-to-text translations
• Alerting devices

Assistive Listening Devices

Assistive listening devices help people with hearing losses by increasing the amplification of sounds in the environment, including others' speech. Three general types of assistive listening devices are available: hearing aids, cochlear implants, and FM transmission systems. Read What IDEA '04 Says About Hearing Aids an Cochlear Implants to learn about some specific federal guidelines for two of these assistive listening devices.

Most conductive losses can be corrected with medicine or surgery, so people who use hearing aids—assistive devices that amplify sounds but are not surgically implanted—typically have sensorineural hearing losses. The hearing aid is the most commonly used assistive device for this group of people; it amplifies sound so that the person can hear more easily. These assistive listening devices have improved greatly over the years. Today's hearing aids allow many individuals to hear well within the normal range. These devices have eliminated the need for special ed cation for many children who are hard of hearing; with their hearing aids, they can profit from general education classes and participate fully in mainstream society Four different kinds of hearing aids are available:

• Behind the ear (BTE)
• In the ear (ITE)
• In the canal (ITC)
• Completely in the canal (CIC)

Because appearance is particularly important to children and teenagers, few select BTEs, even though they tend to be somewhat more effective than those that are hidden in the ear. Many hearing aids are digital and are designed to address each individual's hearing profile. Digital hearing aids automatically adjust volume by amplifying sounds only to the degree necessary to compensate for the loss at each frequency of sound. They also significantly reduce background noise. Older analog models amplify all sounds equally, making it impossible to discriminate speech from noise. A new type of hearing aid is gaining in popularity, possibly because of issues related to keeping hearing aids clean and undamaged. The Songbird Disposable Hearing Aid (SDHA), which now also comes in a digital version, costs about $1 per day it is worn (Ross, 2002). Certainly, disposable aids have great advantages for children, who often damage their aids and find it impossible to keep them clean. Teachers and parents must recognize, however, that hearing aids do not solve all problems associated with hearing loss. Even when hearing aids are carefully matched to and programmed for the individual, they do not completely overcome the limitations of an impaired ear (Ross, 2002; Sweetow & Luckett, 2001).