Hearing Technology Use
Posted:
Individuals with hearing loss use both personal hearing devices and assistive listening systems to maximize their communication access.
Although underused, the most common technology utilized by people with hearing loss for communication access is a personal hearing device that has been programmed for their specific hearing characteristics and needs. These devices include over-the-counter hearing aids, prescription hearing aids, and cochlear implants. Less often, personal sound amplification products may be used by people with hearing loss.
Deaf individuals may find that personal hearing devices provide very limited access to sound. Because of this minimal benefit and in some cases, cultural preferences, some people who are deaf choose not to wear a personal hearing device. These individuals use technologies that afford visual communication access, such as video calling apps, visual home alerting devices, and television captioning.
Personal Hearing Devices
Hearing aids
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates hearing aids as medical devices, defines a hearing aid as a “sound-amplifying device designed to aid people who have impaired hearing.” This simple definition obscures the very sophisticated devices that modern hearing aids have become. Hearing Tracker provides a guide to hearing aid manufacturers, brands, and features. The FDA has defined two regulatory categories of hearing aids: Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids and Prescription Hearing Aids. Both are electronic medical devices. They differ in terms of their intended users and conditions for sale.
Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids: The FDA defines over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids as hearing aids for adults with perceived mild-to-moderate hearing loss that may be purchased directly by consumers without the involvement of a licensed professional. OTC hearing aids are regulated by the FDA with clear labeling as to use, safety and efficacy. This option allows for affordable and easily accessible hearing aids.
Prescription Hearing Aids: The FDA defines prescription hearing aids as hearing aids for people of any age and any degree of hearing loss. A prescription is needed to purchase these devices, and in some states, they must be purchased from a licensed professional.
Cochlear implants
The FDA also regulates cochlear implants, which it defines as “electronic hearing devices.” These devices are very complex, consisting of an external microphone and sound processor that typically sits behind the ear and a surgically implanted electrode array placed in the cochlea of the inner ear. Sound picked up by the microphone is processed and transmitted to the electrode array, where electrical impulses are delivered as a representation of sound.
Personal Sound Amplification Products
Personal sound amplification products (PSAP) are considered consumer electronics products rather than medical devices. They are intended to enhance typical hearing, not address hearing loss. Nevertheless, individuals with hearing loss may choose to purchase and use a PSAP to accommodate their personal hearing needs. PSAPs are not regulated by the FDA. However, the FDA does have non-binding guidance on PSAPs that includes recommendations and their current thinking on this type of device.
Marketing Policy
Posted:
ICAAT cannot be used for marketing purposes. ICAAT does not endorse, promote or advertise any product or service.
Furthermore, companies that participate in ICAAT and recruit consumer stakeholders through ICAAT for their design and development work must agree that they will not solicit testimonials, positive stories, or any other kind of endorsement via any media, including written testimonies, social media, in photos or videos from those ICAAT consumers that use the names, logos or images of ICAAT or its partner organizations (HLAA, Gallaudet University or AIR).
Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) is a consumer organization and partner in ICAAT. HLAA provides information and education about technology that can benefit people with hearing loss. HLAA also does not endorse or promote any product or service.
Companies that work with ICAAT will not receive an endorsement from either ICAAT or its partner organizations (HLAA, Gallaudet University, and AIR).
Additionally, companies cannot use ICAAT for promotion or advertising purposes. However, companies can advertise with HLAA, which has print and digital opportunities through their website, publications, e-News, webinars, social media, and annual convention.
Industry Participants
Posted:
Gaining insights into a community can provide better and more successful engagement.
Co-Design Essentials provides practical information for industry participants when working with consumers with hearing loss or those who are deaf or hard of hearing through ICAAT. Our practical information touches on various topics, including the size and makeup of the community, identity terms and communication preferences, types of hearing technology utilized, communication accessibility and best practices, and expectations around compensation and marketing.
Why Get Involved?
Posted:
When the consumer is at the center of design and development, the end result is a better consumer experience and a more successful product or service. ICAAT helps bridge the space between the expertise found among industry professionals and the expertise found in the lived experiences of a consumer community made up of people with hearing loss and Deaf individuals, by creating a place for cooperative engagement.
Benefits of Consumer-Centric, Cooperative Design and Development
- Creates a clear market focus on the consumer
- Facilitates design and development that is consumer-driven and better suited to addressing consumer need
- Forms a partnership that builds trust and strengthens relationships
- Communicates that consumer opinion matters
- Improves the knowledge of industry professionals and creates a better understanding of the end user
- Generates valuable, relevant, and new ideas and competitive insights based on unique, real-world perspectives
These benefits are far greater than the risk of competitors learning something about a company's plans indirectly, which can be reduced through nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements
What ICAAT provides:
- Opportunities for consumers and industry to engage with one another
- Insights for consumers into new and existing technology products and services
- Insights for industry into the unique needs of people with hearing loss and Deaf individuals
- Cost-effective, efficient ways for industry to recruit for and consumers to participate in research and testing activities
- Different levels and types of collaboration at various stages of design and development
- Sustained engagement between consumers and industry
When the designer, and the maker, and the user are all in the same place talking to each other you get designs that work.
Hearing Challenges on the Move
Posted:
I like taking the train sometimes, especially when heading to Philadelphia, where driving can get you stuck in traffic for a really... long... time. The 30th Street Train Station in Philadelphia is where I get on and off the Amtrak train, and then use the local trains to get where I’m going.
The Station has towering cathedral ceilings, and it’s noisy and wildly reverberant, like a huge echo chamber. Fortunately, there’s a visual display of the trains’ arrival and departure times hanging high at the center of the ceiling.
Not surprisingly, the audio PA system is completely pointless for me. It’s mostly due to the echoes created by that big space, which are so extreme that none of the announcements are understandable. Even hearing people don’t seem to understand them all the time; I’ve asked more than once and can often be met with a shrug of the shoulders. It’s good that they also have a visual display, but I have to be hyper-vigilant about watching it.
I want to hear the announcements in the train station without all the noise and reverberation so that I can more easily understand important information for my commute.
