The Hearing Assistive Technology Landscape for Hearing Loops and Telecoils Dana Mulvany, MSW (U.S.A.) Differing Abilities

Personal Background  Consumer with pre-lingual, ski slope hearing loss  Advocate for people with disabilities  Technological social worker  Consultant (Differing Abilities)  Program planner for this conference

Scope  Other types of hearing assistive technology (HAT) that are legally needed for effective communication access can have an impact on loop systems,  and vice versa…

Effective Communication Access (ECA)  The Americans with Disabilities Act  Requires ECA in public facilities (not religious organizations)  Recent court cases requiring captioning in stadiums

Functionally Equivalent Communication Access Equivalent (not equal) access to important aspects of communication  Meaning  Sensorially (optimize our senses)  Cognitively  Psychologically  Same ease of access as TABs?

Philosophy Many of us were TABs  Temporarily Able Bodied people  Any of us could acquire another disability at any time  Planning for universal access helps people with different abilities and disabilities function as well as possible, including our future selves

Hearing Loops: Functional Analysis  Audio loops excel at providing functionally equivalent access to communication for telecoil users  Easy to use  Virtually immediate  Non-obtrusive  If compliant with IEC standards, provides high-quality experience  Equal access (if all seats are looped)

Limitations of Hearing Loops  Visual access still needed for deaf or severely HOH people  Other technologies may cause interference  Can cause unintended interference with other telecoil uses  Other current limitations (monoaural sound, frequency response)

Other types of HAT needed for effective communication access can have an impact on loop systems… 1.Speech to text:  Open captioning or CART (Communication Access Realtime Transcription)  Closed captioned solutions 2.Speechreading support 1.Video devices showing faces 3.Other assistive listening technology

Compete or Complement?  Goal: Provide effective communication access for people with various disabilities  Legal requirement in some countries  DHAC (Directly Hearing Aid Compatible) listening still desirable in conjunction with other technology

Open Captioning or CART Photo courtesy of

Open captioning (live) Photo courtesy of

Open captioning (pre-recorded)

Closed captioned solutions

Portable computers Smart phones, hand-held devices 1.Captioning 2.Access to text and images 3.Sign language 4.Video for speechreading 5.Song recognition 6.Future: speech recognition?

Portable WiFi-enabled devices

Portable video devices

Videoconferencing Mobile Devices

Other Wide–Area Assistive Listening Technology: Current functional advantages 1.Stereo (directionality) 2.Broader frequency response--- Good for l ower frequencies (music) 3.Confidentiality 4.Portability 5.Individual Control 6.(non-HAT) video description 7.(non-HAT) multiple languages

Competing or complementary? Can hearing loops complement or accommodate?  Check for non-interference  Synchronization of audio & video  Can people with hearing aids use the technology comfortably?

Other HAT that competes for the telecoil 1.Telephones 2.Devices with or connected to Telecoil couplers (neckloops, silhouettes, HAC headphones) 3.Other loops (rare)

Telephones Landline Mobile VoIP (soon) High Definition

Telecoil Couplers Neckloops, silhouette inductors (aka ear loops)  Personal assistive listening technology  Computers, netbooks, iPads, etc.  Video devices (DVD players, etc.)  Videophones or Webcam conversations  Music players

The Need for Personal HAT

Hand-held amplifier

Personal ALS

Personal ALS and alerting system

ALS with multiple sender units

Recommendations: Competing Telecoil Uses  Minimize spillover that could affect other telecoil uses  Minimize unnecessary signals through hearing loops  Make it easy to turn audio on or off  Create areas for telephone use/other telecoil use

Recommendations: Other wide area HAT  Analyze functional advantages and disadvantages  Consider working with the other HAT:  Synchronization  Non-interference  Comfort  Other Ideas?

Wish list for future  Ability to switch telecoil settings between public and private technology  Use GPII and personal smart phones for short-term communication access  Smart phones could show multiple options for access

Dana Mulvany, MSW Differing Abilities