“The Online Audiogram Creator is a simple online tool that lets you save your hearing test results. You can store multiple test results and track your hearing loss over time.”
I’ve made a few changes:
Shanna Groves was diagnosed with progressive hearing loss at the age of 27 after the birth of her first child. She has written about her hearing journey in Hearing Loss Magazine, The Kansas City Star, MOMSense, and the book A CUP OF COMFORT FOR NURSES(Adams Media). LIP READER is her second book and her first novel. A member of the Hearing Loss Association of America and the National Association of Memoir Writers, Shanna lives in the Midwest with her family.
The synopsis below is taken from Shanna’s Lip Reader blog:
Rea Traylor secretly wants to break free of the confines of marriage and motherhood. Husband Danny’s conventional ways and modest income as a police officer in early-1980s Colorado cause growing resentment for his free-spirited wife. The couple has two young daughters: wise-beyond-her-years Sapphie and Roni, an introverted thumb-sucker. After inventing a story to Sapphie, their older daughter, about Dan having an affair, Rea flees with her children to an impoverished town in western Oklahoma where Rea’s estranged parents and siblings live.
Sapphie Traylor has never before met her mother’s family and is jolted by their eccentricities: Grandpa Bebop is an unpaid pastor to an ultra-conservative congregation and moonlights as a mechanic; Grandma has an eighth grade education and is too meek to confront her husband’s stern religious beliefs; the grown Bebop children live in trailers parked next to their parents’ run-down house that used to be a café; nearly everyone in the family has some degree of deafness.Once Sapphie learns surprising truths about her family, she has the clues she needs to understand them and the mystery behind their hearing loss.
You can read an excerpt from the novel on the Lip Reader blog too, click here to read it.
I haven’t read the book myself yet – it’s out of stock at Amazon UK at the moment – but the excerpt is good and I can’t wait to read the rest of it.
Hearing is the ability to perceive sound by detecting vibrations through the ear. Humans have a fairly narrow range of hearing compared to other species – frequencies that we are capable of hearing are between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz, this is know as the audio, or sonic, range. Frequencies above that range are know as ultrasonic and those below are know as infrasonic. Dogs can hear ultrasound, that’s why they hear dog whistles and we don’t. Apparently snakes can sense infrasound though their bellies, and elephants, giraffes, dolphins and whales use it to communicate.
Listening and hearing are not the same thing and I think the distinction is important, especially when it comes to understanding a hearing loss and successfully using hearing aids. Listening is something you consciously do, it is the act of interpreting and understanding the sound that you heard.
It’s estimated that 10% of the population have a hearing loss that is significant enough to impair communication. It is likely that far more than that 10% have a mild loss that is either not yet noticeable or not bad enough to cause them concern. Studies have shown that it takes an average of seven years from the first onset of hearing loss for someone to seek some kind of help or treatment. There are two types of hearing loss:
A sensorineural hearing loss is one that affects the nerves or hair-cells in the inner ear. Common causes include old age, noise exposure, ototoxic medications and Menieres disease. Sensorineural loss accounts for 90% of all hearing loss. Nerve and/or hair-cell damage does not only reduce the sounds that you can hear, it also affects your ability to understand sounds that you have heard – a very common problem is being able to hear someone talk but not being able to understand clearly what they are saying.
This type of hearing loss does not necessarily affect all of the sound you can hear equally. Imagine a piano, you can hear all of the notes from the full-range of keys being played, now if you remove or smash some of those keys and you can now only hear they remaining keys being played – a sensorineural loss is a bit like that, you can hear some frequencies perfectly and some not so well.
This type of hearing loss is permanent. There is no cure at the moment but there is strong hopes that stem-cell injections may offer a cure in the future.
A conductive hearing loss is one that affects the structures that transfer (conduct) the sound to the inner ear. Many cases are treatable. Wax and fluid build-up are easily removed, an infection can be treated with antibiotics, a ruptured eardrum can be patched and damaged middle ear bones can be replaced.
This type of hearing loss affects all sound equally, the opposite to sensorineural, if you have a conductive loss then all frequencies reduced by the same amount.
Tinnitus is the perception of sound within the ear in the absence of corresponding external sound. The sounds that people with tinnitus hear can vary from ticking, beeping, whooshing, buzzing or wind noise to musical tunes and songs. Some people experience a constant, steady sound and others have ever-changing sounds – some people have more than one sound at the same time.
Tinnitus can be caused by ear infections, wax build-up or stress but the most common reason is excessive exposure to loud noise. Sufferers are advised to try and stay stress-free, get enough sleep, avoid caffeine, use a hearing aid and to use low-level noise generators that help to mask the tinnitus sounds. Tinnitus tends to mostly occur in quiet situations, noise generators and hearing aids have proved to be very good at producing sounds to mask the tinnitus.
Starkey Laboratories, Inc. is proud to introduce S SeriesTM with Drive ArchitectureTM, the extraordinary new family of hearing aids that combines art and science to create unparalleled levels of performance, comfort and personalization. S Series, developed using Starkey’s evidence-based design approach, is available in custom and a first-ever full line of receiver-in-canal (RIC) options. At the heart of every S Series hearing instrument is Starkey’s newest, state-of-the-art integrated
circuit platform, Drive Architecture, designed to deliver maximum performance, power and patient satisfaction. Powered by multi-core technology, Drive Architecture utilizes independent and fully programmable open architecture processors to efficiently carry out tasks in parallel by using simultaneous multi-threading technology. Drive Architecture triples the processing power of previous platforms, allowing for super efficient, high-speed multitasking of signal processing algorithms for better performance while significantly improving battery life over Starkey’s previous technology platform.
“S Series by Starkey is the biggest leap forward in hearing aid technology in years,” said Jerry Ruzicka, President of Starkey. “Our successful meld of art and science creates broader appeal among a new generation of hearing professionals who place equal emphasis on technology and design for their patients. No need to sacrifice when you can have it all.”
The S Series boasts Starkey’s newest features based on proven best-in-class innovations including:
PureWave Feedback Eliminator, delivering broader bandwidth, faster processing and intelligent artifact elimination to ensure patients get the best possible performance in every listening environment. S Series models offer up to 25dB of added stable gain for the highest broadband gain margin in the industry.
Acoustic Scene Analyzer (ASA) is Starkey’s newest integrated system for managing noise and preserving speech recognition that instantly classifies incoming signals based on unique acoustic characteristics. ASA seamlessly selects and implements the most appropriate algorithms individually or collectively, providing the best possible acoustic response at every moment in time. This results in the highest level of patient comfort and clarity in noise, while emphasizing speech preservation.
InVision Directionality is designed to perform best in highly complex backgrounds of noise. The industry-leading system boasts the highest DI scores and lowest operational noise floor, helping patients significantly increase their speech understanding in noise.
AudioScape is Starkey’s new acoustic pattern recognition system that uses patented real-time environment detection and classification to adapt to any listening environment by seamlessly adjusting to a patient’s preferred settings. A channel-specific signal-to-noise ratio calculation ensures that speech is always given the priority.
Automatic Telephone Solutions (ATS) automatically detects telephone usage and adjusts to the optimal acoustic frequency response for telephone listening.
T2 (touch-tone) allows people to control their hearing aids using any cell or touch-tone phone, avoiding the need to carry additional hardware. T2 discreetly and instantly classifies the touch-tone signal and automatically adjusts.
As the recognized expert in custom devices, Starkey has integrated breakthrough features directly into hearing aids and fitting software so custom products are guaranteed to fit the first time. The company’s master craftsmanship in custom fittings and open vent options combined with industry-leading feedback cancellation results in custom devices that deliver superior comfort and performance.
S Series is the first full RIC product line to offer a beautiful, comfortable option for all levels of hearing loss – from mild to severe. The power and performance of Drive Architecture allows more patients to be fit than ever before with a RIC hearing solution that offers unparalleled feedback cancellation, directionality, environmental adaptation and comfort. When fit open, S Series has the widest fitting range and usable high-frequency bandwidth of any open fit instrument in its class. The line also includes the new S Series AP (Absolute Power), a patient-proven RIC that offers between 60 and 71dB of peak gain, making it the best performing and most powerful RIC on the market. Even patients with severe hearing loss can enjoy the discreet style, design and comfort of a RIC without sacrificing power and performance.
I have a new pair of Starkey’s S Series hearing aids – I got them fitted at Banbury Hearing Centre.
Over the next few weeks I’m going to review their performance against my old aids and write about them on here. I’m very impressed already. In the office last week I managed to listen in to someone else’s conversation from another desk – that was a welcome surprise!
The noise reduction seems really good, I can listen to music in my car now – before the engine and road noise was so bad I just turned my aids off.
I’ll go into more details on the features of the S Series when I get a bit more used to them. I’m also going to take pictures of the aids, the packaging and everything else I got with them – just to give those of you who’ve never bought a hearing aid before some idea of what you get.
If you live in or around Oxfordshire, UK then I highly recommend Banbury Hearing Centre as a great audiologist and hearing aid vendor.
I’ve been there twice recently to be fitted with a new pair of Starkey S Series aids and have received a really first-class service.
John Enderbury is the audiologist there. I had two one-hour appointments with him – both of which stretched over the hour because John took the time to explain my new aid’s features and answer any questions I had. It didn’t feel like I was on a conveyor-belt like it has done in the past with some other vendors. John also does home-visits for those that can’t make it to their shop.
The thing that really sold them to me was that I got a cup of tea while I was in there. Yeah, it’s the small things that matter! A good brew was very welcome as I sat there waiting for ear-moulds, aid checks and so on.
Banbury Hearing Centre has a small shop in White Lion Walk and their telephone number is: 01295 268 333. You can get directions to their shop using Google.
Tell them Steve sent you!
Looking to buy a new hearing aid? They are sold in a few different ways these days, here’s a description of each:
This is the most common way that a hearing aid is sold. If you go to a high-street or independent retailer then this is how you will be sold an aid. Basically, you pay one lump-sum for everything: the hearing aid itself, the audiologist’s time, the hearing test, the fitting, the programming and the after care.
Typically the price you will pay will be from $1000 / £600 upwards. This is many times more than the hearing aid itself costs but remember that you are paying for everything here, the service as well. Top of the range aids using cutting edge technology will cost around the $3000 / £2000 mark.
Some companies are selling hearing aids (mostly on the Internet) that allow you to use computer software to programme them yourself.
The idea here is that you either get a hearing test from an audiologist or perform a telephone-based hearing test to assess your hearing loss, send the results of these to the company and they send to you a hearing aid programmed to your hearing loss and computer software so that you can change things about your hearing aid yourself to suit your needs.
Current UK prices are around £600 for an aid and £300 for the programmer. In the US prices tend to be around $600 and up.
This is probably the cheapest way to buy a hearing aid, but not necessarily the best. This is similar to the self-programmed purchase except that you do not get a programmer. You may in some cases be able to submit your hearing aid test results to get the aid programmed for you, in other cases you will simply buy a hearing aid that is programmed for the most common type of hearing loss.
UK prices start from £99.
One company in the States is taking a unique approach to hearing aid sales. I love this. You pay a one-off fee for the hearing aid, which is sold at or near to the manufacturers price. You then pay for the audiologist’s time as and when you need it. This means you get all of the service that you would get with the buy everything way but you do not have to pay a massive fee up front – you pay for what you need.
The company that is doing this is called Barika.
In my opinion, a combination of the service led way and the self-programmed way should be the future of hearing aid sales.
Anyone who has bought, or is looking to buy, a hearing aid knows that they are very expensive. It’s common knowledge that many of the retailers using the buy-everything way sales model are selling hearing aids at many, many times more than the cost to make them. It’s easy to say this is greed and that hearing aids should be cheaper, but the key thing is that when you buy a hearing aid you absolutely need a professional to fit and programme the aids for you in order to get the best performance from them – this is especially true for first-time buyers. I do think that the buy-everything way is too expensive and could be cheaper, but do be aware the the audiologist is key to you hearing properly.
Having said that, visiting the audiologist is a problem for many people, simply because they don’t live nearby or that can’t fit visits around work, etc. That’s why I think the self-programmed way is also very important. People should be able to tinker with their aid’s performance a little bit to get the sound that they want.
The pre-programmed way is important as it helps to get more aids into more people’s ears at an affordable price. It’s important to note though that a £99 pre-programmed aid is not going to work as well as a £2000 one that has been professionally fitted for you. I think, though, that pre-programmed aids will help a lot of people hear more and that’s a great thing. Also, prices for pre-programmed aids do start very low but you can buy higher-end aids pro-programmed too – you get what you pay for.
A combination of the service led way and the self-programmed way would give you everything you need to hear as well as possible: a reasonable price, professional fitting, as much after care as you need and the ability to change your aid as you see fit.
I’ve created a little online tool that allows you to enter your hearing test results onto an audiogram.
Online Audiogram Creator
At the moment it’s very basic but I’m hoping to add to it. You can enter the result for your left or right ear and then right-click on the audiogram to save it as a picture to your computer.
I’d like to add some different audiogram graphs for you to put your results on: one that’s just an empty graph, one similar to the one I already have that show the different scales of hearing loss and another that shows the speech banana and common sounds.
Does anyone have good quality audiogram images that I could use? I’d be happy to put a note on saying “images supplied by X” with a link to your site. I’ve looked around the net but most of the audiogram pictures are scans from paper that look awful.
I might also add the ability to save your hearing test results to that you can later refer back to them to see how your hearing is compared to your last test. Was also thinking about uploading people’s results, along with their age and country and then gathering some stats on them – you could then see how your hearing compared to other’s of the same age etc. Just an idea.
What do you think. Is this tool completely pointless? Should I add anything to it? Is anything missing or wrong? Comments very welcome.
All digital hearing aids are programmable. Some analogue hearing aids have programmable options too.
It means that an audiologist can modify a hearing aid’s settings for your personal hearing loss – it also means that they can set the aid up so that you can hear the sounds that you want to hear in your everyday environments.
There will default options for common situations such as: at home, at a party, at the theatre, listening to music, and so on. You can ask your audiologist to modify these to suit your needs.
Hearing aids are worn in many different environments, some are quiet, some are very noisy, some have lots of people talking to you from many directions at once, etc. You want your hearing aid to be able to let you hear well in all of these situations and being able to do that is hard.
To give you the best chance to hear in all situations, digital hearing aids have a number of programmes (sometimes called settings or defaults) that you can select yourself while you are wearing your aid. So, you might ask your audiologist to install the music programme, the party programme and a telephone programme on your aid – its up to you to decide which programmes best fit your lifestyle.
How you select a programme varies from aid to aid – many have a small button on the shell, some have a pocket-size remote control, some let you use your mobile phone and other have touch sensors.
In most cases a hearing aid will switch automatically to its telephone setting when you put the phone’s receiver to your ear.
That’s up to you! Personally, 99% of the time I use my hearing aids on the default setting – I wore analogue hearing aids for many years and am used to having the same sounds all the time, so I keep the same programme on.
If you work in a library and party a lot at night then you will probably find you can hear much better with a programme for the quiet library and another for the noisy party.
Modern aids have the ability to be configured exactly how you want them.
Lip reading is a critical means of communication for many deaf people, but it has a drawback: Certain consonants (for example, p and b) can be nearly impossible to distinguish by sight alone.
Tactile devices, which translate sound waves into vibrations that can be felt by the skin, can help overcome that obstacle by conveying nuances of speech that can’t be gleaned from lip reading.
Researchers in MIT’s Sensory Communication Group are working on a new generation of such devices, which could be an important tool for deaf people who rely on lip reading and can’t use or can’t afford cochlear implants. The cost of the device and the surgery make cochlear implants prohibitive for many people, especially in developing countries.
“Most deaf people will not have access to that technology in our lifetime,” said Ted Moallem, a graduate student working on the project. “Tactile devices can be several orders of magnitude cheaper than cochlear implants.”
Moallem and Charlotte Reed, senior research scientist in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics and leader of the project, say the software they are developing could be compatible with current smart phones, allowing such devices to be transformed into unobtrusive tactile aids for the deaf.
“Anyone who has a smart phone already has much of what they would need to run the program,” including a microphone, digital signal-processing capability, and a rudimentary vibration system, says Moallem.
Tactile devices translate sound waves into vibrations that allow the user to distinguish between vibratory patterns associated with different sound frequencies. The MIT researchers are testing devices that have at least two vibration ranges, one for high-frequency sounds and one for low-frequency sounds.
Read the original article in full on the MIT website.
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