Hearing solutions to enhance your life and keep you connected!
Living Sounds Hearing Centre Ltd. offers a wide variety of assistive listening devices (ALDs) to assist the deaf and hard of hearing. Practical ALDs such as alerting systems and text telephones add feelings of safety while enabling continued communication.
Although personal hearing devices can be extremely useful in assisting individuals with a hearing impairment in their daily activities, there are many situations in which the personal hearing device alone cannot provide sufficient help. ALDs help deal with these difficult situations and can be separated into two broad and distinct categories:
Alerting Devices
This category of ALDs alert the person with a hearing impairment to certain situations like a door bell or ringing telephone, through a signal that can be seen or felt, like a flashing light or a vibration. The device picks up the sound made by each source on the system. The signal is sent on a wire or by radio waves to a central unit. A signal is then sent to lights in the house, which flash in a pattern. Each device has a different pattern of flashing. Examples of alerting devices include:
- Smoke alarm signalers
- Doorbell signalers
- Telephone signalers
- Sound signalers
- Paging devices
- Baby-cry devices
- Wake-up or timer devices
- Siren devices for automobiles
- Multipurpose systems – any combination of the devices listed above
Assisted Communication Devices
Communication devices are designed to enhance speech understanding in difficult listening situations and help reduce the problems associated with background noise and reverberation. Examples of devices and uses include:
- Amplified telephone and TTY
- Television and radio ear phones
- Classroom, meeting room or lecture hall - FM Systems
- Theatre, cinema, or house of worship – closed captioning and rear screen projection
- Communication Access Real time Translation (CART)
Description of Communication Devices
Amplified Telephones
Special telephones, which have adjustable volume, pitch, and ring patterns
TTY
The text telephone allows what you say to be transmitted over the telephone via text (writing) instead of voice. A TTY consists of a typewriter keyboard and a modem that changes what is typed into patterns of beeps transmitted over the line. These beeps are then converted to text and displayed on a screen. Most TTYs also have an acoustic coupler into which the telephone handset is placed. Some TTYs can be directly connected to the telephone line, eliminating the need for the coupler. When both parties have the appropriate equipment, each one can read on a screen what the other types.
TTY is also sometimes called a TDD, Telecommunication Device for the Deaf, but TTY is the more widely accepted term. TTYs are used by a wide variety of people, not only those who are hard of hearing.
Relay Services
A Relay Operator acts as a link between the TTY user and a hearing person, typing to one what the other says, and reading to the other what the TTY user types. This way the hearing or the hearing impaired person can call anybody not just another TTY user. The Relay Operator can be reached through a toll free number found in the front section of a telephone directory.
Voice Carry Over (VCO)
Some people who once had good hearing still have good speech. Voice carry over allows the hard of hearing person to speak directly to the hearing person on the other end. The Relay Operator will only type the hearing person’s responses for the hard of hearing person to read. The operator does not hear the hard of hearing person’s part of the conversation. When making this type of call, ask the Relay Operator for “Voice Carry Over”. “Hear Carry Over” is a similar feature for those who can hear but not speak clearly.
In addition to dispensing personal hearing devices, Living Sounds Hearing Centre Ltd. also has a vast array of personal listening devices and emergency alerting systems.
TV Ears are a unique listening system that deliver sound directly to your ears so you can enjoy TV without missing a sound. You control the volume so your TV will never be too loud or too soft again.
The Pocket Talker amplifies sounds and voices in your immediate environment when you direct the microphone toward the sounds you wish to hear. The Pocket Talker can be used by individuals who have hearing impairments to communicate with other individuals or for listening to the TV or radio.
The Telephone/Door Signaler lets you know when the telephone is ringing or when someone is at the door by flashing a plugged in lamp or add-on strobe. It can also signal Remote Receivers, which flash lights in other rooms. Unique flash patterns help you identify which sound is occurring. This signaler is ideal for people who want a cost effective way to be signaled to both the telephone and the doorbell.
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