LACE in Australia and New Zealand

 Neurotone is proud to announce the availability of LACE in Australia and New Zealand!
LACE is now sold in Australia and New Zealand from Blamey & Saunders Hearing. Blamey & Saunders Hearing are owned by well-known scientists in the area of evidence-based hearing technology, and have partnered with leading international suppliers to develop a hearing aid specially designed to be adjusted by you, the user. This way you get to adjust the hearing aid just how you want it to sound.

To learn more about Blamey & Saunders Hearing click here.

One in Five U.S. Adolescents Has Hearing Loss

According to new research from Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), hearing loss among U.S. adolescents has surged. Quote from Hearing Mojo:

In findings published in this month’s Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers analyzed data from two major surveys done by the National Institutes of Health, one done in 2005-2006 and the other done from 1988 through 1994. They found the rate of significant hearing loss — such as inability to hear soft sounds such as whispers or high-frequency sounds such as high musical notes or high-pitched voices — had increased among adolescents aged 12-19 from 14.9 percent in the first survey to 19.5 percent in the second, a 30 percent increase.

Read the whole story at Hearing Mojo

Sign Language Over Mobile Phones

Here’s an interesting article on the the “MobileASL” project at UW.

The MobileASL project at UW has been working to optimize compressed video signals for sign language. By increasing image quality around the face and hands, researchers have brought the data rate down to 30 kilobytes per second while still delivering intelligible sign language. MobileASL also uses motion detection to identify whether a person is signing or not, in order to extend the phones’ battery life during video use.

Click here to read the full article at GizMag.com

Check out the video below explaining the research and showing the phones in action

On Web Video, Captions Are Coming Slowly

Here’s an interesting article on the state of Web Video Captions:

The actress Marlee Matlin shimmied her way onto “Dancing With the Stars” two years ago, memorably using sign language to tell viewers to “read my hips.” But when Ms. Matlin, who is deaf, went to ABC.com to watch a replay of the show, she was impeded because the network’s videos were missing captions.
Closed-captioning is mandatory on television, but not for TV programs on the Internet. And that has turned Web sites like ABC.com into battlegrounds for advocates like Ms. Matlin, who have spoken up on the lack of captions on sites like CNN.com and services like Netflix.

Click here to read the full article at The New York Times

Baby’s reaction to cochlear implant being activated

What a great video!

8 month old deaf baby’s reaction to cochlear implant being activated:

You Don’t Need to Have a Hearing Loss to Benefit from LACE

You Don’t Need to Have a Hearing Loss to Benefit from LACE

By Frank Butts, Ph.D.; Co-owner of Hearing Clinics of Virginia, an eleven-year old practice in Richmond, Virginia

I am a bit out of the ordinary in the world of Audiology and dispensing of hearing aids, having earned my Audiology Ph.D. with a specialization in temporal masking, a form of central auditory processing, focusing on the aging auditory system. We have three offices in the Richmond area with seven audiologists. Our group dispenses hearing aids to about 80 patients per month. We deal with lots of geriatric patients older than 70.

I was attracted to LACE for several reasons:

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Dr. Sweetow Wins Distinguished Award in Audiology

Robert W. Sweetow, PhD, a clinical professor of otolaryngology and director of audiology at UCSF Medical Center since 1991, and co-developer of LACE, has received the 2008 Distinguished Achievement Award from the American Academy of Audiology.

Sweetow received the award on April 2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The announcement of the award appeared in the American Academy of Audiology’s March/April edition of Audiology Today.

“Dr. Robert Sweetow is a gifted clinician, teacher and researcher,” the bulletin reported. “Dr. Sweetow has provided personal care for many patients with hearing loss, and he has helped countless other audiologists to improve their care for people with hearing loss by his teaching and research. Audiologists around the world recognize the many contributions made by Dr. Sweetow in the areas of aural rehabilitation, hearing aids, tinnitus, counseling and forensics.”

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