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Millions of people use assistive communication technologies—and millions more could but don’t.
To find out why, through a 30-question consumer survey, the Committee for Communication Access in America (CCAA) is documenting and quantifying the experiences and preferences of consumers in their use of a variety of different aural and visual assistive technologies used in large public venues like theatres, places of worship, convention halls, and others. Hearing and understanding the spoken word in these settings can be problematic—even when wearing hearing aids—for those with a hearing disability, denying them the opportunity to fully experience and be a part of the proceedings.
Collecting and reporting on the differences in the use of the various assistive technologies available in such settings by age, degree of hearing loss, type of technology, and other factors, will provide valuable information. Established and new hearing device manufacturers, hearing care professionals, architects, providers of aural rehab, and other services to the hard of hearing, and the public, will benefit from the survey’s findings. Those will be made available for review or to download at the Committee’s website when fully compiled and analyzed.
US-based hearing aid and cochlear or bone implant users, as well as hard-of-hearing people who have no such devices, are invited to participate in the survey.
Please take the SURVEY ON UTILIZATION OF ASSISTIVE COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN PUBLIC VENUES.
The survey contains 30 questions and should take about 10-12 minutes to complete. It runs from September 11 through September 30.
The Committee has retained the services of the Frost Center for Data and Research at Hope College in, Holland, Mich, for help with the survey design and then for provision of the data collection, its analysis, and the writing of a report of the survey findings. The professional staff of the Center hold graduate credentials in the social sciences and provide an extensive breadth of data and research experience, knowledge, and skills.
Professor, educator, and author David Myers (CCAA Member)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.’”
The CCAA is an ad hoc committee of nationally known advocates for people with hearing loss who have come together to gather and then share information on the use of assistive communication technology. The members of the committee are:
