Fw: Hearing loops makes NY Times

[Guest guest]

The hearing loop project supported by HLAA and AAA takes off.

,

Tommorow (Monday) one of my dreams comes true: The New York Times reports here

on our consumer-led and now audiologist-support efforts. Mindful that no

article will say exactly what any of us might have said, my wish to its writer,

Tierney, was that " Perhaps readers can, after they forget the details, take

away the animating idea of our advocacy: that America can better serve people

with hearing loss, and that—without expensive and complex gadgetry—hearing aids

can serve as customized, wireless loudspeakers in all sorts of venues. "

I tip my hat to each one of you on this list. You are foremost among the people

who, whether having hearing loss or offering supportive services to people with

hearing loss (or both!), have created the movement that inspired this article.

You can be sure that I made him aware of initiatives in places such as Arizona,

Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, New York City, Rochester (NY),

Sarasota, Silicon Valley, and Wisconsin, and of the vendors who are marketing,

designing, and installing hearing loop systems (people whose admirable ventures

aim to do good while doing well).

I give a special tip of the hat to my hero audiologists—tte Sterkens,

Remensnyder, Kricos, and Mark Ross—who have been so encouraging and

supportive of our efforts, as has Sergei Kochkin at the Better Hearing

Institute. Another tip of the hat goes to hearing advocate Janice Schacter,

based in NYC, for her efforts that have helped make good things happen in NYC

and places beyond, and to the Manhattan HLAA chapter. And I salute

Battat, Steve Frazier, and the rest of the HLAA/AAA " Get in the Hearing Loop "

taskforce, and its meeting planner, Dana Mulvany, for their visible initiative

that lent credibility and visibility to our efforts. I was delighted to see the

HLAA and AAA both given visible acknowledgement.

Einhorn, who wrote a wonderful letter after experiencing the temporary

loop at the HLAA's Kennedy Center experience, was among the list of possible

interviewees I passed along to Tierney. As it happens, they're both in NYC and

Tierney knew of , having previously written (here) about his beautiful

oratorio celebrating the life of Darwin. So Tierney met to test

one of the newly looped NYC subway booths (see list here). It worked great, and

they talked and corresponded afterward. Moreover, and a sound engineer

friend created a very cool audio demo for the Times, demonstrating a booth

worker's voice recorded by an open mic during rush hour, and simultaneously via

a loop amplifier.

So, that's the scoop. If you'd like to help seize the moment, there are three

things you might consider doing:

1) Submit a response to the article, today, to letters@.... You

might, for example, offer a paragraph (or two, not more than 150 words) that

shares your personal experience of hearing loops, or what's happening where you

live. Include your address and phone number. For more guidance see here.

2) Send the editor of your local paper a link to the article, suggesting

they run it, perhaps with a follow-up on your local efforts.

3) E-mail links from nytimes.com to anyone who might be interested (thus

helping make this one of the day's most e-mailed Times articles, which will help

generate further media interest). Vendors should feel free to use this in their

marketing, perhaps by e-mailing the link to customers to help them feel good

about what they've pioneered, motivating them to feel go to in turn provide more

priceless word-of-mouth marketing.

With my thanks to you all, mindful that all of us together are so much more than

any one of us alone. The pack is greater than the wolf.

Dave Myers (www.davidmyers.org and www.hearingloop.org)

P.S. Some may wonder about the article's reporting that two-thirds of hearing

aid models come with telecoils (a slightly different number than the 58 to 62

percent of new hearing aids that have telecoils, in 2008 and 2009 Hearing

Journal hearing provider surveys—up from 37 percent in 2001). I gave him both

the " 6 in 10 " hearing aids survey result, plus these from the Hearing Products

Review reviews of the features of all hearing aid models:

• 7 of 28 CIC (completely-in-the-canal) models (October, 2010)

• 8 of 10 ITC (in-the-canal) models (May/June, 2009)

• 20 or 42 RIC/RITE (receiver-in-canal/ear) models (January, 2010)

• 24 of 35 " Thin- and Slim-Tube " aids (February, 2010)

• 38 of 38 ITE (in-the-ear) models (September, 2010)

• 29 of 30 " Conventional " BTE (behind-the-ear) models (January, 2009)

TOTAL: 126 (69%) of 183 hearing aid models