Hearing Loss Help  

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady asked:

What is the best cell phone for a person with a hearing problem?

That question is impossible to answer because there are so many variables. Many of these variables are subjective—so only you can answer them. It is like asking people, “What is the best tasting food?” You will get all sorts of answers—some might say filet mignon, or angel-food cake or spinach or eggplant—and they would all be right—for that person.

Other variables are more objective—and depend on how you plan to couple the phone output to your ears. Thus, the answer to your question is “It depends…”

It depends on your likes and dislikes.

It depends on whether you wear hearing aids, or want to use the phone with your bare ears.

It depends on the degree of you hearing loss.

It depends on the shape of your hearing loss curve.

It depends on your word recognition (discrimination) scores.

It depends whether you are a techno-geek and like lots of “goodies”, or want a plain simple cell phone.

It depends on whether you need texting capabilities, or just normal phone service.

It depends on whether you are going to be using the phone in noise, or just in quiet places.

It depends on your own personal subjective feelings of what sounds good to you. Phones vary in the quality of their sound.

It depends on what features you need in a cell phone and those you would like to have.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.

Personally, here are the key things I look for in a cell phone.

1. Loud volume (although no phone has the volume I need).

2. Bluetooth connection.

3. Headset jack—hopefully standard 2.5 mm jack.

4. M4/T4 rating.

Items 2 and 3 are necessary if you want to connect your phone to your hearing aids.

Item 4 is necessary so the phone doesn’t cause interference in your hearing aids.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady explained:

In my townhouse, I have an interconnected smoke alarm system that is powered, and which also uses 9-volt batteries. In the master bedroom on the third floor, the vaulted ceiling on which the smoke alarm is placed is very high, so it would require a tall ladder to change the battery. It’s thus a hassle to change the battery for that alarm. I’d like to get a very long-lasting 9-volt battery to put there so it won’t have to be changed as frequently. Got any ideas?

I would suggest getting a 10-year Lithium smoke alarm battery for the smoke detector on your vaulted ceiling, and maybe doing the same for the rest of your smoke detectors as well, while you’re at it!

Needless to say, it’s still important to regularly check for the low-battery alert since any battery can fail prematurely!

The Ultralife 10 year lithium UltraLife battery from batteries plus.com is $7.29.

The Ultralife 10 year lithium Smoke Detector battery from Amazon.com is $5.80. Just go to Amazon and in the search box type “Ultralife upvl”

Important: be sure the battery you are getting is listed for use in smoke detectors.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

In the USA in 2006, there were 412,500 home fires that killed 2,580 people and injured another 12,925 people. That’s scary! On the average, these same fires killed one person with hearing loss every 15 hours, and injured a person with hearing loss every 3 hours. That’s really scary if you are one of the 70 million Americans with hearing loss!

You don’t have to become one of those statistics. Although having a hearing loss puts you at a decided disadvantage when using standard alerting devices to warn you of fires, you can put the odds decidedly in your favor if you follow these four basic steps…

Thus begins my latest article “Fire Safety for People with Hearing Loss“. Click this link to read the rest of this article.

This article explains a number of practical coping strategies for preventing fires from happening in your home and discusses wonderful new alerting systems to quickly get your attention—even if you have a hearing loss—if a fire should happen to break out.

Also, here’s a link to learn about the wonderful new Lifetone HL Bedside Fire Alarm & Clock which includes the link for purchasing your own Lifetone Fire Alarms.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady wrote:

I know a stereo plug has two rings, and a mono plug only one. That is easy to see, but, how do you know whether the device you are plugging into has a stereo or mono jack?

One manufacturer of assistive devices says in their instructions, “do not plug a stereo plug into this device, because it will damage the product” (or something like that). Not all devices come with adequate instructions (and in some cases, no instructions). Also, some instructions that are translated from another language into English can leave you scratching your head as to what they mean.

As you know, you can’t tell just by looking at a jack whether it is made for a mono or stereo plug. The easy way to tell is, if ear buds (for example) come with it, I check the plug on them, and if it is a mono plug, then the jack will almost certainly be mono as well. The same for stereo plugs and jacks.

Since you can’t tell by looking, and its easy to forget later whether the jack was mono or stereo, what I do with my assistive devices, adapters and ear buds/neckloops is put a color-coded dab of nail polish by each male plug and female jack—a blue dab means it is mono and a pink dab means it is stereo.

This way you always know which is which. When using any assistive devices and adapters, it is very simple—you plug blue to blue and pink to pink.

So when I use my PockeTalker (mono) with my stereo ear buds (which I much prefer to the ear buds that come with the PockeTalker), I have to use a stereo to mono adapter. I have a blue dab beside the PockeTalker jack and a blue dab at the male adapter plug. I have a pink dab at the female (stereo) end of the adapter, and pink a pink dab on the stereo ear bud plug. When plugging all this together, all I have to remember is “blue to blue and pink to pink” and I never have to wonder whether I’ve hooked it up correctly or not.

This is a great idea to use with elderly people and people that are not “electrically” inclined. Put all the appropriate colored dabs on the jacks and plugs of their assistive devices, and then just tell them always to match colors and they won’t have problems.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A new teacher with a profound hearing loss wrote:

I am a hearing impaired student teacher. I have a profound hearing loss with a speech recognition of 12 percent. I was wondering if you could assist me with some strategies for teaching normal hearing students in a Middle School environment. I would need procedural and instructional strategies that work. Can you assist me with this, as I do not know of any hearing impaired educators locally.

Since your discrimination is so poor, my first suggestion is to consider getting cochlear implants.

As for coping strategies there are many. In truth, many of the coping strategies you used as a student are the same ones you need to use as a teacher. After all, hearing loss is hearing loss.

For example, continue to use your speechreading skills that I’m sure you have used all your life. If you want to improve your speechreading skills, may I suggest the Seeing and Hearing Speech CD program. You can get it at http://www.hearinglosshelp.com/products/seeinghearingspeech.htm.

I assume that you know many of the tricks to help you hear better such as get close, have the light on the speaker’s face, cut out background noise, etc. My short book, “Talking with Hard of Hearing People, Here’s How to Do It Right!” gives a lot of help in this respect..

Do you use any assistive devices? I think you’ll find the super-directional microphone plugged into a PockeTalker, will help you hear your student’s better. In actual fact, this microphone was originally designed for a hard of hearing teacher. I find it most useful. To use the PockeTalker with your hearing aids, plug in a neckloop instead of ear buds.

To learn more, read the article I wrote called “Hearing in the Classroom: An Assistive Device for Hard of Hearing Teachers“, and another article along the same line called “Hearing in the Classroom or in Other Noisy Places“.

If you have trouble hearing your student’s replies, then I’d tend more to written answers, rather than verbal ones.

If you can’t hear a student there are a number of strategies you can employ, such as:

1. Arrange your classroom so the soft-spoken students all sit near the front of the room so they are closer to you. That way you can hear them better.

2. Walk down the aisle so you are closer to the student you are trying to hear. That way you can hear him/her better and speechread better too. Combined with the Super-directional mic/PockeTalker combination, this can really work well.

3. Have a student who you can hear well sit at the front of the room and “interpret” what someone said that you just can’tget. At times I do this when speaking to groups. I ask someone that I know I can hear/understand to repeat what someone just said. Don’t do this too much as you are imposing on the goodwill of the person doing the “interpreting”. It is better to learn to cope on your own, rather than “using” other people as much as possible.

4. Pass a wireless FM microphone around and anyone who wants to speak, talks into the microphone. You wear the FM receiver and pipe their voices directly into your ears via a neckloop and the t-coils in your hearing aids.

5. Have a student you can’t hear/understand come up and write key words on the blackboard.

6. Teach your students how to fingerspell so they can fingerspell any key words you miss.

7. Give out a sheet at the beginning of each year that explains your hearing loss and what you need the students to do. One hard of hearing teacher did just that. You can read this sheet in my article, “Coping Strategies for Hard of Hearing Teachers“.

So there are 7 things you can do to help yourself successfully live with your hearing loss in the classroom. They may “prime the pump” and now you’ll think of other things you can also do in addition to using all the assistive devices mentioned above.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Last month a man wrote:

I am somewhat hard of hearing. I can never hear my cell phone when it rings, even when it is in my pocket. Do you have a remote little light that would blink when my phone rings?

I had written in part:

Sorry, I’m not aware of a portable blinking light device for cell phones.

Fortunately, one of our subscribers knew the answer. There are indeed such devices—not remote lights, but lights that fit on the phone itself.

Lynn explained:

I thought it would be nice to share information about a portable light that flashes for cell phones. These are available at many mall kiosks that sell cell phone gadgets. It is a light of any design that fits in place of the antenna on the cell phone. Mine was red/white and blue. In the mountains one night, my husband thought a police car was stopping us and pulled over. Twice it happened with no policeman in sight! (I forgot to tell him I bought this “alerting device” for my cell phone and in the dark car it really lit up!)

It did help when I just wanted to see the light without the loud ring/vibration on a table, or did not have pants pockets. It was easy to see inside my purse too….a really bright strobe light the size of your cell phone antenna.

I did a bit of research and found that there are in fact two kinds of lighted accessories you can get for your cell phone.

As Lynn explained above, there are light-up antennas for some cell phones. Also, there are lighted batteries for other cell phones. These lighted batteries come with a transparent battery cover so you can see the light flashing through it.

Unfortunately, these accessories seem to be fast going out of style and are harder to come by. I checked with two mall cell-phone accessory kiosks and both said they used to carry them but not any more.

You can still find them on-line, but they only work for a limited number of phones (probably older ones). If you are interested, do a Google search for “light up antenna for cell phone” for the antenna kind, and “light up battery for cell phone” for the battery kind. Then check the search results for your phone model and service. It seems the antenna light-up accessories don’t work with CDMA networks for example.

If you strike out there, all is not lost. As Wendy informed me, some phones have flashing strobe lights built in. She explained, When “the LG8100 rings a little strobe light flashes, so even if I don’t hear it, I can see it flashing! It’s great for me!”

So if you want a phone that flashes to alert you, there are at least three possibilities that may work for you if they don’t all go the way of the Dodo bird.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady explained:

My mother-in-law is hard of hearing and only has a cell phone now. She doesn’t hear it ring all of the time and I am trying to find something that will amplify the ring on the phone, or something that will notify her that it is ringing. Do you know where I may find something like this?

If she is carrying the cell phone around with her—then set it on vibrate mode and have her wear it close to her body somewhere so she can feel the vibration.

Also, if she has the right cell phone and service provider, she may be able to add flashing lights to her cell phone to get her attention. (See the article “Flashing Lights for Cell Phones Revisited“.)

If she basically leaves her cell phone on the counter or coffee table, or bed table, or wherever at home then having the cell phone on vibrate won’t help. However, I have just the device she needs in that case—the Super Loud Cell Phone Ring Alerter. It does three things—flashes a strobe, makes the ring much louder and at night with the optional vibrator to put under her mattress, it will shake her awake.

In her case, probably a good solution would be for her to have two Ring Alerters. Put one on her bed table in the bedroom hooked up with the bed vibrator. Place the other one where she spends most of her time. Have it sitting in plain sight so she can see the strobe light when it flashes as well as hear the loud ringer.

It is easy to use this Ring Alerter—just pull out the elastic at the back—put the cell phone between the elastic and the back of the Ring Alerter and let the elastic hold it in place there. That’s all there is to it. To answer the phone, you just pull the cell phone out of the elastic and answer it normally.

This ring alerter also works for landline phones too. You plug it into the wall phone jack and plug the phone into the Ring Alerter. Whenever the phone rings, it will alert you just the same as if it were a cell phone. In fact, I think it will work with both phones at the same time.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

You don’t want to be taken in my ads that claim you will hear well with the latest hearing device. NewsChannel 5 ( WTVF) recently wrote a story that begins:

If you’re having trouble hearing, you might be tempted to buy a new product called the Loud ‘N Clear.

It promises to help you hear better and even hear things you might not ordinarily be able to.

But, can the Loud ‘N Clear really do all that its ads claim?

NewsChannel 5 Investigates put it to the test, and consumer investigator Jennifer Kraus found the answer is… Click here to read the rest of this story.

This expose’ is itself a bit misleading. It asks whether you can hear across a street, or what people are saying in a crowded room with lots of other noise, etc. The answer to that is no, the Loud ‘N Clear can’t do that, but surprise, neither can my fancy hearing aids. You have to have realistic expectations of what hearing aids and assistive devices can and cannot do for you. One thing they won’t do is restore your hearing to normal. In quiet situations you can expect to hear much better, but in noise, or in groups, you will still find that you typically miss a lot.

You see, there are two factors in hearing loss. First, obviously, since you have lost some hearing, you need a device to make sounds louder—and hearing aids and other devices can do that without any problem. However, they cannot fix the second factor that also accompanies hearing loss, namely, poor discrimination.

In other words, speech may be loud enough for you to hear people talking, but you may still miss a lot of what they are saying because your ears can’t hear many of the high-frequency speech sounds that give speech much of its “intelligence”.

In noisy situations you can’t rely solely on devices or hearing aids unless you can get the microphone right up to the speaker’s lips. (This is why FM systems work so well in these situations—you have the remote microphone right at the speaker’s lips.)

Trying to hear a person talking through noise and at a distance just isn’t going to work, whether you are using your “big buck” hearing aids, or the Loud ‘N Clear, or any other assistive device unless you have a remote microphone at the speaker’s mouth. That’s just the way it is.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady explained:

If someone has an automatic t-coil on their hearing aid, they will have problems hearing on their cell phones if they want to do so in t-coil mode. They will need a magnet glued to the phone’s earpiece in order to activate the automatic t-coil.

I don’t have a t-coil switch on my digital hearing aid. As a result, for a year, trying to hear on my cell phone was horrible. I couldn’t put a magnet next to the earpiece to kick in the t-coil because it was a flip-phone and it wouldn’t close otherwise.

I just brought a new cell phone—not a flip phone this time. I glued a magnet next to the earpiece and the t-coil kicked in properly. I can hear great now!

You have just exposed one of my chief complaints concerning automatic t-coils—they need a manual override when using them with devices that do not provide a strong enough magnetic field to activate them. This includes devices such as cell phones, neckloops and room loops.

It’s a shame that after paying the big bucks for your hearing aid, you still have to fool around to make the automatic t-coil work with your cell phone. Your work around is great—you just have to find a small magnet that’s powerful enough to activate your automatic t-coils and then glue it to the right place on your phone so it will activate when you hold the phone up to your ear (hearing aid). That’s a pain.

I don’t like, or recommend, automatic t-coils unless they have a manual override. With a manual override, you don’t have to fool around with a magnet. You just manually put your hearing aids into t-coil mode. Then they will work with your cell phones and neckloops and room loops too.

With your automatic t-coils, you can’t hear via your t-coils when using loop systems unless you stick magnets to your hearing aids to activate their automatic t-coils. That’s another pain. (Also, you need to have those magnets with you at all times so you have them when you need them.) Furthermore, you can’t glue the magnets to your hearing aids because you have to remove the magnets when you are finished with the looped device so your hearing aids will return to microphone mode again. Otherwise, you won’t hear a thing until you do. What a pain!

It’s so much better to insist on a manual t-coil, or an automatic t-coil with a manual override. Then you never have to fool around with magnets on your phone or your hearing aids. As you can tell, I’m solidly for “pain-free” listening.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man wrote:

I am somewhat hard of hearing. I can never hear my cell phone when it rings , even when it is my pocket. Do you have a remote little light that would blink when my phone rings?

Sorry, I’m not aware of a portable blinking light device for cell phones. However, there are some things you can do. First, most hard of hearing people have a high-frequency loss—which means they don’t hear the higher-frequency cell phone ring tones very well. Therefore, to make it easier to hear your cell phone ringing, download (or choose) the lowest frequency ring tone that is available for your phone. You might be surprised how much better you can hear a lower-frequency ring tone.

Second, why don’t you leave your cell phone on vibrate so you can feel it ring, even if you can’t hear it?

Third, if you regularly put your cell phone down—for example, on your desk, or on your bed table at night, I do have a nifty gizmo for you. This device flashes a light, produces a loud audible alert, and, if you are in bed, shakes your bed to get your attention whenever your cell phone rings. You can see this cool cell-phone ring alerter here.