This is lovely and for a good cause too.

The Jubilee Project makes films for good causes. This film was produced to raise awareness and support for the American Society for Deaf Children. There are two ways that you can support this cause:

1. Go to jubileeproject.bandcamp.com to buy the soundtrack for this video, “Peaches” by New Heights. You can also donate directly to the cause at this site.
2. Sign up to become a sponsor of this video. Each sponsor will be asked to donate 1 penny for each view this video receives in November. So if the video is watched 1000 times this month, sponsors will each donate 10 dollars. You can sign up to become a sponsor by emailing project.jubilee@gmail.com. All proceeds will go to the American Society for Deaf Children.

The American Society for Deaf Children is a non-profit organization started in 1967 that supports and educates families of deaf and hard of hearing children and advocates for high quality programs and services.

A few weeks ago my daughter asked me to teach her how to finger spell. It took me by surprise because she’d never shown any interest in learning to sign before. After about an hour of going through the alphabet she was signing words and short sentences pretty quickly.

Now, I’m as much of a proud dad as the next man and I’m sure my daughter is destined for greatness but she’s no child prodigy or anything like that. If she can pick up the finger alphabet in about an hour then presumably most other nine/ten year-olds can too. So why not teach them?

Obviously my daughter has a lot more exposure to hearing loss than many kids so she’s probably more inclined to want to learn more about hearing, signing, etc. What’s really nice is that during the rare times when I’m not wearing my hearing aids we now finger-spell short sentences to each other and it works really well.

So that got me thinking: could schools spend just one or two hours and teach nine/ten year-olds to finger-spell? Probably 90% or more of those who took the lesson would never use it again but it would be a nice introduction to an alternative form of communication, a little bit of exposure to deafness. Maybe kids could use it as their secret-code, a way to communicate without their parents knowing what they are saying – that would give it a bit of a cool factor. If nothing else, it would hopefully make signing seem less of a weird an unusual thing when they did come across it at some point in their lives.

If a class is doing a biology topic then it seems like a good way to spend an hour or two.

british-sign.co.uk is a great website for anyone wanting to learn BSL (including finger-spelling). It has an online BSL course and a nice little finger-spelling game where you have three minutes to correctly identify as many finger-spelled words as possible.

The Better Hearing Institute (BHI) has issued a warning to consumers about purchasing pre-programmed, one-size-fits-all hearing aids.

BHI points out that devices that are purchased over-the-counter or through the Internet without the consultation of a hearing healthcare professional may result in the devices not being accurately customized to the specific hearing needs of the individual, since hearing loss may be the symptom of a serious underlying medical problem. In addition, all 50 states require consumers to use a credentialed hearing care professional to purchase hearing aids, according to BHI.

“Today’s state-of-the-art hearing aids should be programmed to the individual’s specific hearing loss requirements in order to provide good levels of benefit and customer satisfaction,” said Sergei Kochkin, BHI’s executive director.

Kochkin adds that today’s hearing aid fitting process requires a complete in-person hearing assessment in a sound booth, and the training and skills of a credentialed hearing health care professional in order to prescriptively fit the hearing aids using sophisticated computer programs. He also advises that an in-person follow-up and counselling is also necessary to a proper fitting.

Very interesting article on the BBC website today about Neil Harbisson, a colour-blind artist who, with the help of a friend, created a device that allows him to hear colours.

Until I was 11, I didn’t know I could only see in shades of grey. I thought I could see colours but that I was confusing them.

When I was 16, I decided to study art. I told my tutor I could only see in black and white, and his first reaction was, “What the hell are you doing here then?” I told him I really wanted to understand what colour was.

While attending a university cybernetics lecture he met fellow student Adam Montandon, Harbisson asked him if there was anything that could be made to help him see colours – Montandon

He came up with a simple device, made up of a webcam, a computer and a pair of headphones and created software that would translate any colour in front of me into a sound.

You can read the full article here.

This is a Valentine’s Day-related study from Hear The World that looked into how hearing loss can affect relationships with loved ones:

It’s no secret that clear communication between partners is key to a long and lasting relationship and, following a new study, more than 60 per cent of UK hearing aid wearers say their relationship has improved since being fitted with a hearing device.

The new international study, which surveyed 4,300 people across the UK, Germany, France, Switzer-land and the US found that 81 per cent of partners without hearing loss welcome the fact that their significant other wears a hearing aid and say it has had a positive effect on their relationship. Furthermore, 40 per cent believe they are getting more attention from their partner since they have been wearing a hearing aid.

The study was conducted by Hear the World, a global initiative by leading hearing aid manufacturer Phonak, which calls attention to the importance of taking care of your hearing and highlights the social and emotional impact of hearing loss as well as the solutions available for those who suffer.

Relationship expert Professor Guy Bodenmann from the Psychological Institute of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, said: “Various studies show how important communication is for a harmonious relationship. The readiness and ability to adequately listen and respond to each other is one of the most important foundations of a satisfactory partnership. Untreated hearing loss can lead to a disruption in the dialogue between partners and cause misunderstandings and arguments. This can be positively countered by a hearing aid.”

According to the study, self confidence is also cited as a key area of improvement as 29 per cent of people with hearing loss said they feel more attractive and desirable since wearing their hearing aids.

Nearly three quarters (74 per cent) of people without hearing loss have no problem with dating someone who wears a hearing aid, while 59 per cent of hearing aid wearers say they find it easy to meet someone who is relationship material – more than the general population (51 per cent).

I like Hear The World, they are doing some great stuff to raise awareness of hearing loss and hearing care.

Deafness Research UK is inviting you to take part in a tinnitus survey which will help set the priorities for future research into this distressing and little understood condition.

Despite ongoing research in the UK and other countries there are still many unanswered questions about tinnitus assessment, diagnosis and treatment. By contributing your views you can help set the agenda for future research and ensure that scarce funds are used to address the questions that really matter to sufferers.

The survey is being overseen by the James Lind Alliance (JLA) and led by the British Tinnitus Association and the National Biomedical Research Unit in Hearing.

You can enter the survey online at Online Survey or click on the link –>survey download to download the survey.

Please return your completed survey by Tuesday 28 February 2012.

For more information please visit the BTA Website or contact Deafness Research UK at email Research or telephone 020 7164 2290.

Related posts:

1. Tinnitus Awareness Week 6th-12th February 2012

Tinnitus awareness week 2012, which is run by the British Tinnitus Association (BTA), runs from 6th – 12th February. The theme this year is Raising Awareness in Primary Care. The main goals of the week are to:

• Ensure GPs are more aware of tinnitus and have a better understanding of the services available in secondary care.
• Encourage interactions between audiologists and GPs.
• Get as many copies of their Ten Top Tinnitus Tips for GP’s guide to GP surgeries as possible.

A survey published in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, May 2011 showed that around 750,000 people visit their GP each year with tinnitus and the advice they receive varies dramatically. The hope is that raising awareness among GPs will lead to more consistent treatments.

If you would like to help then you can print out a copy of Top Ten Tinnitus Tips for GPs and deliver a copy to your local surgery.

Related posts:

1. Help Deafness Research UK shape the future of tinnitus research

I’ve been messing around with JavaScript during lunchtimes at work this week and have started to put together a web application to allow people to add Closed Captions to videos. Currently it can add text to your own videos (mp4, flv, etc) as well as videos from Youtube. I have a few ideas of how the thing could work in terms of workflow including:

• Playing/pausing the video to be able to write the transcript.
• Breaking the transcript into each caption.
• Selecting the points in the video at which each caption should appear.
• Saving the created captions in WebVTT or SRT formats.
• Using the created caption file to display captions to viewers on your blog/website.

It’s an interesting little project for me but I’m not really sure whether this is worth pursuing? Is there good captioning services available online for free already? What works well? What doesn’t work well? Does anyone have any comments or suggestions to throw in? Would you like to see a captioning service added to Hearing Aid Know? Are you frustrated with current captioning options?

Also, questions for any US-based readers: Do you differentiate between the terms captions and subtitles? Here in the UK they mean the same thing but I’m not sure that’s the case everywhere?

The music industry has changed radically in the last 10 years: digital downloads, the iPod, Internet shopping and online piracy changed the ball-game entirely. Very few people buy music today in the same way as they did 10 years ago – many companies moved with the times and changed their business models to meet the iPod generation, and many have not and are struggling to compete.

The publishing industry is in upheaval too, more and more people are reading eBooks and everyone and their dog is shopping at Amazon. Borders went bust, most bricks and mortar book shops are in peril. Same as with music, some companies saw the change and went with the tide, other are trying to fight it and are losing. You can’t stop progress.

The music industry ship of change has sailed, the publishing industry is in the awkward teenager getting spots and don’t girls look nice stage, the hearing industry has just started feeling the winds of change.

Some in the hearing industry are embracing the changes and others are  digging in their heels. Change is inevitable, technology will progress, people will buy online, people will fit their own aids, new business models will prevail. The smart move is to learn from the record and publishing companies and join the party before it is too late.

I’m still undecided about how well online hearing aid sales can work right now for two reasons: 1. My hearing is way too bad to be fitted with models being sold online so I can’t try them and 2. I have always needed plenty of re-programming by an audiologist/dispenser to get my aids just right, the audiogram was just a starting point. Having said that, I’ve asked readers who have bought online and their feedback is entirely positive, they are all happy with their online purchases and didn’t need extensive reprogramming from a professional – my own experience is completely the opposite to what everyone else has said and maybe this is showing that we are all different, hearing is subjective and options are a good thing.

An example of a new way of supplying hearing aids is the hi HealthInnovations website, it seems like a step in the right direction to me: you can buy a hearing aid online if your hearing loss fits what they are selling, or if not you get directed to a dispenser for one-on-one fitting and advice. How can that not be a good thing? You can’t stop progress.

You can argue until you are blue in the face that people must see a dispenser for a full assessment, you can try legal action against online sellers, you can say the old way is best, you can say it’s unfair, but you can’t stop progress.

Lincoln Pharmaceuticals announced that it has introduced the first injection pharmaceutical cure for tinnitus in India. Using the brand name Tinnex, the injection utilizes the Caroverine molecule, which was developed by Lincoln Pharma under a licensing arrangement and technical collaboration with Phafag AG, Switzerland.

According to the company, cochlear synaptic tinnitus is the most common cause of tinnitus and is due to disturbed interplay of receptors on the postsynaptic membrane between inner hair cells and dendrites. Disturbed interplay creates a state of spontaneous depolarization, causing patients to continuously hear a sound.

Tinnex is described as a glutamate antagonist with a single injection that corrects the spontaneous depolarization state. Receptors start functioning again in a normal physiological way, giving permanent cure from tinnitus to patients, the company claims. It also says that no adverse effects have been noticed during its clinical studies of the drug.

Lincoln Pharmaceuticals says it is exploring other countries to introduce Tinnex. More information is available on the company’s website.

Source: Hearing Review and Tinnex.