Hearing Connection

The terms “assistive listening device” and “assistive technology” can refer to any device that helps a person with hearing loss or a voice, speech, or language disorder to communicate. These terms may refer to devices that help a person to hear and understand what is being said more clearly, as well as express thoughts more easily.

Hearing aid batteries are standardized with number and color codes to make it easy to find what you need. The easy-to-remember codes are 675 (Blue), 13 (Orange), 312 (Brown), and 10 (Yellow). If you do forget, the staff at Hearing Connection Inc. will also know your battery size,  and we make it easy for you to get batteries; you can drop in during normal business hours or phone, email or text your order and we will ship batteries directly to your home.

Hearing aid batteries can last from 4-14 days, depending on the size of the battery, your hearing aid model, level of hearing loss, and the demands of the location where you use them. The more active your hearing aid is, the more battery power that will be used.

You may be wondering why these batteries lose their power so quickly. Hearing aids perform complex functions to amplify the sound correctly to meet your needs and the varying listening environments you are in throughout the day. Watch batteries, on the other hand, may last years, but require little power to keep ticking.

The best place is right where you store your hearing aid at night, or when you take it out…in a bedside table or, if you have space, in a drawer in your bedroom. That way the batteries will be there when you put your hearing aids in first thing in the morning. Of course you may want to keep spares with you in your hearing aid carrying case, too.

And no, it’s not a good idea to keep batteries in the refrigerator. Condensation and moisture can harm them. Avoid extremes in temperature, too. Hearing aid batteries like room temperature—just like you.

Hearing loop (or induction loop) systems use electromagnetic energy to transmit sound. A hearing loop system involves four parts:

• A sound source, such as a public address system, microphone, or home TV or telephone
• An amplifier
• A thin loop of wire that encircles a room or branches out beneath carpeting and transmits the amplified sound

Some assistive loop systems, such as a receiver worn in the ears or as a headset, are portable. This makes it possible for people with hearing loss to improve their listening environments, as needed, as they proceed with their daily activities.

Amplified sound travels through the loop and creates an electromagnetic field that is picked up directly by a hearing loop receiver or a telecoil, a miniature wireless receiver that is built into many hearing aids and cochlear implants. For those who don’t have hearing aids with embedded telecoils, portable loop receivers may be used.

To pick up the signal, a listener must be wearing the receiver and be within or near the loop. Because the sound is picked up directly by the receiver, the sound is much clearer, without as much of the competing background noise associated with many listening environments.

At Hearing Connection Inc., we realize the benefits of looping and have our waiting room looped to the television, for comfortable TV listening.  Our main dispensing room is also looped, so that you may receive a demonstration of how looping works.

For a list of locations in Idaho and throughout the U.S., that have public hearing loops, please click below button

Some types of assistive listening devices, such as a telecoil, are intended for personal use in small settings and for one-on-one conversations. They can all be used with or without hearing aids or a cochlear implant.

• Telecoil
• FM System
• Infrared System
• Personal Amplifiers

The t-coil was originally designed to make sounds clearer to a listener over the telephone. It works by receiving an electromagnetic signal from the hearing loop and then turning it back into sound within the hearing aid or cochlear implant. This process eliminates much of the distracting background noise and delivers sound customized for one’s own need.

For people who are hard-of-hearing who do not have a telecoil-equipped hearing aid or cochlear implant, loop receivers with headsets can provide similar benefits but without the customized or “corrected sound” feature that matches one’s hearing loss pattern.

FM systems use radio signals to transmit amplified sounds up to 300 feet. That makes them useful in many public places such as classrooms, where the instructor wears a small microphone connected to a transmitter and the student listens via a worn receiver, which is tuned to a specific frequency, or channel.

People who have a telecoil inside their hearing aid or cochlear implant may also wear a wire around the neck (called a neckloop) or behind their aid or implant (called a silhouette inductor) to convert the FM signal into magnetic signals that can be picked up directly by the telecoil.

Personal FM systems operate in the same way as larger scale systems and can be used to help people with hearing loss to follow one-on-one conversations.

Infrared systems use infrared light to transmit sound. A transmitter converts sound into a light signal and beams it to a receiver that is worn by a listener. The receiver decodes the infrared signal back to sound. As with FM systems, people whose hearing aids or cochlear implants have a telecoil may also wear a neckloop or silhouette inductor to convert the infrared signal into a magnetic signal, which can be picked up through their telecoil.

Unlike induction loop or FM systems, the infrared signal cannot pass through walls, making it particularly useful in courtrooms, where confidential information is often discussed, and in buildings where competing signals can be a problem, such as classrooms or movie theaters. However, infrared systems cannot be used in environments with too many competing light sources, such as outdoors or in strongly lit rooms.

Personal amplifiers are useful in places in which the above systems are unavailable or when watching TV, being outdoors, or traveling in a car. About the size of a cell phone, these devices increase sound levels and reduce background noise for a listener. Some have directional microphones that can be angled toward a speaker or other source of sound. As with other ALDs, the amplified sound can be picked up by a receiver that the listener is wearing, either as a headset or as earbuds.

The simplest AAC device is a picture board or touch screen. People who are unable to communicate verbally point to pictures or symbols of typical items and activities to express their needs. For example, a person might touch the image of a glass to ask for a drink. Many picture boards can be customized and expanded based on a person’s age, education, occupation, and interests.

Keyboards, touch screens, and sometimes a person’s limited speech may be used to communicate desired words, making communicating more precise. Some devices employ a text display. The display panel typically faces outward so that two people can exchange information while facing each other. Spelling and word prediction software can make it faster and easier to enter information.

Speech-generating devices take assisted communication into the 21st Century, translating words or pictures into speech. Some models allow users to choose from several different voices, such as male or female, child or adult, and even some regional accents.

Other advancements in speech-generating technology include those devices that employ a vocabulary of pre-recorded words and others that have an unlimited vocabulary, synthesizing speech as words are typed in. Software programs that convert personal computers into speaking devices are also available.

For many years, people with hearing loss have used text telephone or telecommunications devices, called TTY or TDD machines, to communicate by phone. This same technology also benefits people with speech difficulties.

A TTY machine consists of a typewriter keyboard that displays typed conversations onto a readout panel or printed on paper. Callers will either type messages to each other over the system or, if a call recipient does not have a TTY machine, use the national toll-free telecommunications relay service at 711 to communicate.

Through the relay service, a communications assistant serves as a bridge between two callers, reading typed messages aloud to the person with hearing while transcribing what’s spoken into type for the person with hearing loss.

With today’s new electronic communication devices, however, TTY machines have almost become a thing of the past. People can place phone calls through the telecommunications relay service using almost any device with a keypad, including a laptop, personal digital assistant, and cell phone.

Text messaging has also become a popular method of communication, skipping the relay service altogether.

Another system uses voice recognition software and an extensive library of video clips depicting American Sign Language to translate a signer’s words into text or computer-generated speech in real time. It is also able to translate spoken words back into sign language or text.

Finally, for people with mild to moderate hearing loss, captioned telephones allow you to carry on a spoken conversation, while providing a transcript of the other person’s words on a readout panel or computer screen as back-up.

Alerting or alarm devices use sound, light, vibrations, or a combination of these techniques to let someone know when a particular event is occurring. Clocks and wake-up alarm systems allow a person to choose to wake up to flashing lights, horns, or a gentle shaking.

• Visual alert signalers monitor a variety of household devices and other sounds, such as doorbells and telephones. When the phone rings, the visual alert signaler will be activated and will vibrate or flash a light to let people know. In addition, remote receivers placed around the house can alert a person from any room.
• Portable vibrating pagers can let parents and caretakers know when a baby is crying. Some baby monitoring devices analyze a baby’s cry and light up a picture to indicate if the baby sounds hungry, bored, or sleepy.

There are so many wonderful options to help you hear and communicate better. Let us show you!