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The Committee for Communication Access in America's Consumer Survey on Utilization of Assistive Communication Technology in Public Venues is developing some statistics that will surely interest both consumers and hearing care professionals. Others who provide services to people with hearing loss could also find them useful. Though they represent around 80% of America’s hard of hearing population, people with self-diagnosed mild to moderate hearing loss account for only a third of respondents to the survey thus far. Of the various devices used to address their loss, the vast majority, 73%, of respondents do so with hearing aids prescribed by a hearing care professional. The new kids on the block—over-the-counter hearing aids—are used by less than 3%.
The survey is collecting information on the differences in the use of the various assistive technologies available in public places of assembly by age, degree of hearing loss, type of technology and other factors. For the findings to be meaningful the CCAA wants as many participants for the survey as they can find, so the search continues.
Anyone in the US with hearing loss or a speech processing disorder is both invited and urged to participate in the survey. They can wear hearing aids, have a cochlear or bone implant, or hear unaided by such devices. The survey consists of 30 questions and takes only 10 to 12 minutes to complete.
People can participate using THIS LINK.
This survey’s purpose is to document and quantify the experience and preferences of consumers with hearing loss in the use of various assistive communication technologies currently found in public venues. The results will offer guidance to service providers and decision makers on the furnishing of suitable communication access.
Established and new hearing device manufacturers, hearing care professionals, architects, providers of aural rehab and other services to the hard of hearing, plus the general public, will benefit from the survey’s findings. They will be made available for review or to download at the Committee’s website (www.CCAA.name) when fully compiled and analyzed. The Committee has retained the services of the Frost Center for Data and Research at Hope College in Holland, MI for help with the survey design and then for provision of the data collection and its initial analysis.
Professor David Myers, CCAA member and internationally known psychologist, educator, and author“As social animals—as people who need people—hearing is vital to our emotional and cognitive health. Thankfully, today’s hearing technologies can enable those of us with this great invisible disability to escape the deafness that caused Beethoven to lament living ‘like an exile’ and experiencing social encounters with ‘a hot terror.’”
Detailed background information on the various communication technologies included in the survey, and on the members of the CCAA, is posted on the Information and About Us pages of the Committee website: www.CCAA.name.
