Ages and Stages

By Maureen Plain

Effective communication is one of life’s greatest pleasures, and for those of us with typical hearing, we so often take this gift for granted. The process of verbal communication starts with being able to hear what is said. We then apply knowledge of the words we hear, so we can decipher its message.

When crafting a response, we must have the words in our repertoire of vocabulary readily available, so we can express our thoughts and then pronounce the words clearly enough to be understood by others. As we verbalize our response, grammatical markers for our words, intonation patterns, and understanding the social setting helps us share our thoughts effectively. This process of verbal communication begins in infancy with the use of eye contact, sounds, and body language, and continues throughout our lives. 

For those with hearing loss, all of this can be especially challenging.

Imagine the challenge for a 3-year-old girl who has just been diagnosed with a moderate to severe sensorineural hearing loss in both ears. For three years until diagnosis, she communicated entirely by reading body language and other physical cues. But how did this affect her ability to effectively communicate with others in the hearing world?

In the first couple years of life, caregivers (i.e. parents, nannies, and family members) are acutely aware of small children and often times face them when speaking. This girl’s caregivers did not realize she was solely dependent on reading body language and other physical cues, including lips, to communicate. As she got older, her mother noticed that when faced away, her daughter was unresponsive. After many misdiagnoses, this little girl and her family were told she had hearing loss.

Fortunately this child has a dedicated family that responded to her diagnosis with unwavering commitment, and immediately started designing a team of professionals to support the best learning possible, which included top-notch audiologists and a speech-language pathologist/auditory therapist. The school district provided great support and I was fortunate to be this child’s speech/language pathologist from the very beginning, working with her a few times each week from age 3 until she graduated from high school. 

Vocabulary growth and clear and proper pronunciation of words were always a crucial components of our therapy, as well as benchmarking and tracking progress. A toddler needs vocabulary to engage in play and to learn, just as a teenager needs vocabulary to navigate school and friendships.

At every age, building vocabulary with a person with a hearing loss is multifaceted and hard work. First we worked on hearing and saying each word until it became familiar enough to begin the process of developing listening for each word. We paid extra attention to words with syllables extremely difficult for her to hear, in this case those that are considered high-frequency (S-, SH-, CH-,TH-, -ECT.).

As the child grew older, she spoke intelligibly but would often leave off the ending syllables, such as a plural “s” because she was repeating only the sounds she heard. We worked on learning grammatical marker patterns so she would pronounce a plural “s” based on grammatical rules. Practicing the articulation for each sound component in a word is also very challenging, since a hearing loss makes it difficult to hear your own speech sound errors and correct them. We also used an oral motor approach to complement our work on sound production. We focused on how a sound felt when it was pronounced; where her lips, tongue and jaw belonged to articulate different sounds properly. We also practice oral vs. nasal air flow and practiced making sounds in front a mirror to see how it looked. Through this process, she developed speech that is clear and understood by all listeners, in addition to being able to use verbal cues and grammatical markers that she has been trained to watch for, but was otherwise unable to hear.

We also integrated speech therapy with auditory training exercises. Listening practice included her looking and listening when I was visible, and repeating the sounds she heard back to me. Once she mastered that, I then moved farther away from her sight to advance this skill. We then moved to improving listening without looking; while still facing her, I covered my mouth with a paper to develop better listening and discrimination of sound. As accuracy improved, I then would sit behind her and continually moved farther away until I was 6 feet away, with her back facing toward me. We also practiced listening to the word so it can be recognized in quiet and in noise.

Listening skills were paired with our work on vocabulary comprehension to enhance communication. Beyond pronunciation and listening, learning the definition of each word to build comprehension is crucial. Vocabulary shapes our conversation, and since mishearing words is a constant challenge for those with hearing loss, they must rely on their vocabulary knowledge to fill in the gaps for greater conversation participation and quality of life.

These are just a few of the many strategies that we used to improve speech, language, and listening during our 15 years together. To succeed she, as well as her parents and family, needed to fully trust the process and integrate these strategies into her everyday life. While therapy was only 2-3 hours a week, speech and verbal communication is a chosen part of her everyday life.

Therapy was a lot of hard work and sometimes frustrating for her, as not every milestone was easy. Until there’s a cure for her type of hearing loss, she will not have the ability to hear as seamlessly as those with typical hearing or have perfect speech. 

May is Better Speech and Hearing Month and serves as reminder that verbal communication is a shared pleasure that brings us laughter, learning, and love. We should take this month to treasure the gift of communication and celebrate the hard work and success of all individuals whose ability to communicate is challenged, for whatever reason.

Maureen Plain M.S., CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist with 37 years of experience in the greater NY area. She is currently a Program Director for Sunny Days Consulting Services in New York.

6 Facts Every Woman Should Know About Hearing Health

By Laura Friedman

National Women’s Health Week may only last a week (May 10-16, 2015), but women’s health is a year-round issue. A growing body of research shows an association between hearing loss, quality of life, and a number of common chronic diseases and health conditions.

In the United States today, as many as one-third of women in their 50s have some degree of hearing loss, along with nearly two-thirds of women in their 60s. The findings of a 2008 study also suggest that the prevalence of hearing loss among younger adults, specifically among those in their 20s and 30s, is increasing. Fortunately, for the vast majority of people with hearing loss, hearing aids can help.

For many years, experts have known the positive impact that addressing hearing loss has on quality of life. Research shows that many people with hearing loss who use hearing aids see an improvement in their ability to hear in many settings; and many see an improvement in their relationships at home and at work, in their social lives, and in their ability to communicate effectively in most situations. Many even say they feel better about themselves.

In honor of National Women’s Health Week, we are sharing 6 Facts Every Woman Should Know About Hearing Health from The Better Hearing Institute:

1. Women with hearing loss are more likely to be depressed. Research shows that hearing loss is associated with depression among U.S. adults, but particularly among women.
   

2. The ear may be a window to the heart. Cardiovascular and hearing health are linked. Some experts say the inner ear is so sensitive to blood flow that it’s possible that abnormalities in the cardiovascular system could be noted here earlier than in other less sensitive parts of the body. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, according to the American Heart Association.
   

3. If you have diabetes, you’re about twice as likely to have hearing loss. What’s more, having diabetes may cause women to experience a greater degree of hearing loss as they age, especially if the diabetes is not well controlled with medication. About 11% of women in the United States are affected by diabetes.
   

4. Many of the same lifestyle behaviors that affect the heart impact hearing. More evidence of the interconnectedness between cardiovascular and hearing health is found in three studies on modifiable behaviors: One found that a higher level of physical activity is associated with lower risk of hearing loss in women. Another revealed that smokers and passive smokers are more likely to suffer hearing loss. And a third found that regular fish consumption and higher intake of long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids are associated with lower risk of hearing loss in women.
   

5. Hearing loss in women is tied to common pain relievers. Ibuprofen and acetaminophen are associated with an increased risk of hearing loss in women. The link is even stronger among those younger than 50.
   

6. Addressing hearing loss may benefit cognitive function. Research shows a link between hearing loss and dementia, which leads experts to believe that interventions, like hearing aids, could potentially delay or prevent dementia. Research is ongoing.

HI and HHF are encouraging women of all ages to take a free, quick, and confidential online hearing check at BetterHearing.org to help determine if they need a comprehensive hearing test by a hearing healthcare professional.

The content for this blog post originated in a press release issued by The Better Hearing Institute on May 8, 2015. 

Do Airplanes Trigger Tinnitus?

By Shari Eberts

I am lucky enough to have mostly mild tinnitus. Sometimes I have flare-ups and lately I have been experiencing a day of tinnitus after any air travel. This is a problem for me since I love to travel, and most of the places I like to travel to require an airplane ride. So what’s a weary hard-of-hearing traveler to do? It became clear to me that proper ear protection on the airplane is key.

My post-airplane tinnitus flare-ups have been occurring for the last several months and are usually accompanied by a reduced ability to hear. Even for someone with typical-hearing, it can be a challenge getting off the plane at a new destination, navigating the baggage claim, the rental car agency, and perhaps customs, all with two children in tow. But with a tinnitus flare-up and reduced hearing, it is even more challenging.

For me, I believe the issue is the sustained level of noise on the airplane; according to my iPhone decibel reader app, the interior of a plane is very loud—anywhere from 80 to 95 decibels, depending on the flight. Once in the air, the sound is like white noise and is easy to forget about or ignore, but it is constant, and can be damaging to our hearing. The rule of thumb is that prolonged exposure to any noise at or above 85 decibels can cause gradual hearing loss—and that damage can be permanent.

Here are some workarounds that I have found; I hope they work for you as they do for me:

1. When I get on the plane I shut my hearing aids off, so they act as earplugs. This can be a challenge if I need to communicate during the flight because almost all sound is blocked, preventing me from hearing. While sometimes I must turn them on, I try to keep my aids off for the entire flight, from prior to takeoff until we have reached the gate.
   

2. I try to reserve a seat on the aisle and as far away from the engines as possible. Sometimes this is not possible without paying extra for a special seat, but when possible, I do so.
   

3. I wear a hooded sweatshirt or jacket on the plane for an additional barrier to the noise. It helps prevent the tinnitus and the effect of reduced hearing.

These activities have helped a little bit, but have not fully eliminated the issue. I am still searching for solutions until there is a cure. Please share your tips with us in the comment box below.

This post originally appeared on the blog Living With Hearing Loss on March 25, 2015. The author, Shari Eberts, is the chair of HHF's Board of Directors.

A Neurological Emergency

By Jane Madell, Au.D.

Hearing loss is the most common disability in children worldwide. Annually in America approximately 3 in 1,000 babies are born with permanent hearing loss, making hearing loss one of the most common birth defects in the U.S. Hearing loss cannot be viewed in isolation; it can cause problems for auditory brain development. When a child with hearing loss is born, the child has already had 20 weeks of auditory deprivation.

Typical*-hearing babies
When babies with typical-hearing are born, they have been listening to their mother’s voice and the voices of others near their mother. They can tell the difference between their mother’s voice and their father’s voice. They recognize inflection; they can tell which words are important and separate them from words that are used to connect the important words. They recognize emotion in voices, and music they heard during pregnancy. Although the sounds they hear are softer and a little muffled compared with those heard outside the womb, they provide significant input to the auditory brain.

Babies with hearing loss
Babies with hearing loss are born with brain deprivation, which is why it is important to act quickly to reduce the effect of this delay. The critical thing to remember is that there is a short window for developing the auditory brain. If children do not get the opportunity to hear during the first 3 to 3 ½ years, they will lose that opportunity. We are not just talking about developing language (which is certainly critical), but also about literacy. Reading is in the same part of the brain as hearing, so if we want children to succeed, we need to build the auditory brain early.

Typical-hearing babies who are not exposed to language
Lack of exposure to auditory stimulation affects everyone’s brain. Typical-hearing children who live in homes where their parents do not talk with them will also show a lack of auditory brain development. Hart and Risley (1995) have demonstrated that the number of words heard directly affects both the number of words in a child’s vocabulary and the child’s IQ at age 3 years. Children who heard ~30,100 words in a 14-hour day had a vocabulary of ~1,100 words and an IQ of 117 at age three years, while children who heard ~8,600 words in a day had a vocabulary of 525 words and an IQ of 79.

So what should we be doing?

Every child needs good exposure to language. While professionals have a role, the most important people in providing language stimulation to children are their parents. Everyone who works with children needs to help parents understand that EVERY child needs a lot of auditory input. Parents need to be encouraged to talk, read, and sing to their children. Ten books a day should be the goal. We need to help parents learn how to talk to their children, and, most importantly, how to enjoy talking to their children. All children with limited language — not just those with hearing loss — have reduced economic possibilities.

Empowering parents
Ears are the pathway to the brain; the brain is the organ of hearing. Just as parents are the people who need to feed their children and keep them warm, parents are also the people who have to give children power to use their brain. It is essential that parents are properly educated about their child's hearing loss and the role they play in their child's auditory development. If children can learn to listen and talk, they will be able to:

• Talk to people around them and learn from them

• Hear and learn great ideas

• Read well and learn about the world

• Receive a good education

• Have life choices

The ability to get a good education and to increase life choices has the added advantage of reducing poverty, as well as the possibility of making major changes in a child’s life.

Take action today to protect your children's ears against the dangers of noise and consider donating today to help us find a cure for hearing loss and tinnitus.

This post originally appeared on Hearing Health @ Hearing Health & Technology Matters’ blog on February 10, 2015. The author, Jane Madell, Au.D., is an audiologist, speech-language pathologist, and auditory verbal therapist with 40-plus years of experience in the greater New York City area.  

*Typical Hearing was use in place of Normal Hearing. 

Make Sure You Hear That

By Kathi Mestayer

With another holiday season right around the corner, participating in conversations around the dinner table and social gatherings can be a real challenge for those with hearing loss. It can lead to feelings of frustration, especially if there is a family member who has an unacknowledged—and untreated—hearing loss.

Undiagnosed, untreated hearing loss has been shown to detrimentally affect personal relationships, as the Better Hearing Institute reports: “Research demonstrates the considerable negative social, psychological, cognitive, and health effects of untreated hearing loss with far-reaching implications that go well beyond hearing alone. In fact, those who have difficulty hearing can experience such distorted and incomplete communication that it seriously impacts their professional and personal lives, at times leading to isolation and withdrawal.”

Here are some tips to help you hear your best:

• Sit at the end of the dinner table so you can see everyone’s faces. The ambient noise from a crowded table can be a tough listening situation, so seeing people when they are speaking will help.

• Try to avoid sitting or standing next to fans, vents, or anything else that may be adding an extra layer of background noise.

• Adjust the programming on your hearing aid or other listening device to accommodate a noisy environment.

• Consider using an FM system or other assistive listening device to help you hear.

Before she became a staff writer for Hearing Health, Kathi Mestayer’s first article for the magazine in Summer 2011 spoke about the challenges of communicating well with family members. Her “tacit norms” include this list of informal rules in her family:

• Outdoors is better. A screened porch or the back yard is a much quieter and easier place to converse than a noisy house.
  

• One speaker at a time. Really.
  

• Be patient. We’re all trying our best, even the kids.
  

• Take a break. Struggling to make sense out of the incomplete sound data we get is exhausting. A nap or some quiet time is the best way to recharge your brain.

We hope that these tips are helpful to you in hearing that “thank you” from your loved ones.  

Show your thanks by making a gift to honor or in memory of a loved one and help HHF find a cure for hearing loss and tinnitus through our Hearing Restoration Project. We are ever thankful for your support!

Staff writer Kathi Mestayer serves on advisory boards for the Virginia Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Greater Richmond, Virginia, chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America. This is adapted from her reader-sponsored work, “Be Hear Now.”

An Ice Storm or a Nice Storm?

By Kathi Mestayer

When we get fuzzy speech data to work with, such as in music lyrics, noisy settings or, if you have a hearing loss, everywhere, our brains can come up with some pretty silly interpretations, like “I led the pigeons to the Flag…” instead of “I pledge allegiance to the Flag …”

But even when we hear correctly, that same brain can play it back to us more than one way, with more than one meaning.  Kind of like an optical illusion…but with sound.

A string of words that has multiple interpretations is called an oronym.  Like “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.” You can interpret it either way, depending on the context, the way it is said, or the phase of the moon.  

Why?

In his book, “The Language Instinct,” the Harvard psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker tells us: “In the speech sound wave, one word runs into the next seamlessly; there are no little silences between spoken words the way there are white spaces between written words. We simply hallucinate word boundaries when we reach the edge of a stretch of sound that matches some entry in our mental dictionary.”

So, if our mental dictionary contains more than one match for what we hear, well, we can hear it both ways. In fact, the sound input doesn’t even have to be speech for our brains to have a crack at it. Pinker explains: “The brain can hear speech content in sounds that have only the remotest resemblance to speech.”

So, we will superimpose meaning onto just about anything, and if it doesn’t make sense, we just keep trying until something fits. Kind of like when my brain heard baroque music coming from the vacuum cleaner, or the countless phrases I swear my parrot says (everything from “ashram” to “wiki” with “kabuki” and “Nietzsche” and many more in between). 

While our brains are busy riffing on what we hear, programmers and engineers are working hard trying to create devices that can interpret speech, even passably, well. One application is online captioning, or what I call “robo-captions.”

The results are not particularly impressive so far, but our brains are a tough act to follow. According to Pinker, “No human-made system can match a human in decoding speech.” That fact was brought home to me when my friend complained about the speech-activated calling system in her car. “It can only interpret the numbers if I read them without any pauses. If I pause, for just a second, the computer inserts the number eight,” she says.  

Online captions created by speech-interpretation software are particularly bad at it (the real-time captions on TV are much better). You can go here to get a quick chuckle.

Staff writer Kathi Mestayer serves on advisory boards for the Virginia Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Greater Richmond, Virginia, chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America. This is adapted from her reader-sponsored work, “Be Hear Now.”

How to Have a Better Conversation with Someone with Hearing Loss

All of us with hearing loss know how hard it can sometimes be to converse comfortably with our friends and family. We get tired, frustrated and sometimes just tune out. But it is hard on those that love us as well. They don’t like to see us struggle or be unhappy; and they can get annoyed that we don’t understand what they are saying. Today’s post is for them. Please share these tips with your friends and family and enjoy better conversations!

HOW THOSE WITH HEARING LOSS HEAR

The first step in having better conversations is for our friends and family to understand how those of us with hearing loss actually hear. The best way I know to explain it, is as a game board from Wheel of Fortune. Some of the letters are filled in, others are blank. The contestant (or listener in this case) is trying to make sense of the assorted and incomplete sounds he or she is hearing and turn these sounds into a word or phrase that makes sense in the context of the conversation.

It is also useful to point out that hearing aids don’t work like glasses. Glasses, by bending light through a curved lens, can transform an image that is blurry and distorted into something crisp and clear. So if you wear glasses, in most cases, you can see just like someone with typical vision, or pretty darn close. With hearing aids, this is not the case. Hearing aids are helpful in amplifying sounds, but this just makes them louder, not necessarily crisper or clearer. Most people with hearing loss can hear that someone is talking to them; they just can’t understand what words are being said. The clarity is not there.

Hearing aids also have a tough time differentiating among sounds so that the background noise (i.e., the hum of the refrigerator or the air conditioner) is amplified in addition to the more important sounds of the conversation. This can actually make it harder to hear in certain situations!

HOW TO HAVE A BETTER CONVERSATION WITH SOMEONE WITH HEARING LOSS

So, with that as background, here are our tips for having more satisfying conversations with someone who has hearing loss. Please share your tips and ideas in the comments.

1.  Provide Context Before and When Speaking: Context makes it easier to fill in the blank spaces of the words on the Wheel of Fortune game board. If all you hear is “__oot,” knowing if the conversation is about owls (hoot) or a robbery (loot) or musical instruments (flute) is a big help!

2.  Get Their Attention Before Speaking: Hearing takes concentration for those with hearing loss, so make sure they are ready and are paying attention. Talking to them before they are ready will have them playing catch-up and make it harder for them to understand the context of the conversation.

3.  Make Sure They Can See Your Lips: Lip-reading is helpful in filling in the blanks of what is not heard. I always tell people I can’t hear you if I can’t see you. See Shari's post, I Can’t Hear in the Dark, for more on this. Don’t cover your mouth with your hands and make sure that you are well-lit.

4.  Enunciate Clearly and Speak at a Steady Rate: Remember that volume is only part of the problem. Clarity of the sounds is really key. Speak your words clearly, and try to maintain a regular pace of speech. Rapid speech is very difficult to follow since all that brain processing time is condensed, while slower than typical speech will look weird on the lips and make lip-reading less useful.

5.  Be Aware of The Surroundings: Background noise is a problem, so try to avoid it if you can. Turn off the A/C or at least turn the fan down to low. Don’t play music in the background. Pick a quieter restaurant or request a corner booth. A quiet and well-lit spot always works best.

6.  Take Turns Speaking: If there are multiple people in the conversation, it is important that only one person speaks at a time and that each speaker makes the effort to face the person who has trouble hearing.

7.  Be Prepared to Repeat or Rephrase: Get ready for hearing, “What?,” at least a couple of times during the conversation. Try not to get frustrated, but simply repeat what you have said. If the person does not get it the second time, try rephrasing your thought using different words that might be easier for him or her to hear. Or spell a word that is giving a particularly hard time. Often knowing the first few letters of a word can help to connect the dots.

8.  Keep Your Sense of Humor:  Hey, it can be frustrating, I know. But remember the goal is to connect with one another, so why not laugh at the misunderstandings. It is better than the alternative.

Readers, what tips do you have for improving conversations with someone with hearing loss?

Shari is the Chairman of  HHF's Board of Directors and founder of the blog, Living With Hearing Loss. 

Thank you Greg F. for these great ideas. Greg is a member of Hearing Health Foundation‘s National Junior Board and is working on a mobile phone app to help those of us with hearing loss find quiet spots in NYC.  

How to Handle the Holidays When You Have a Hearing Loss

By Shari Eberts

My post How to Tackle Thanksgiving Dinner When You Have a Hearing Loss received so many helpful tips in the comments, I decided to incorporate them into a new post that focuses on the holidays more generally. Thank you to everyone who shared their ideas! There were so many great ones. I wish you all a very happy and healthy holiday season!

The holidays are a great time of year, filled with family dinners and celebrations, gatherings with friends, holiday parties, and lots of socializing. I love getting dressed up, enjoying the decorations and participating in the general feeling of happiness that comes along with the season. But if I’m not careful, all the socializing and holiday hubbub can become exhausting and overwhelming. I want to be a part of the fun, but the concentration required to hear can be taxing, particularly at holiday parties held in noisy restaurants or similar venues.

But, let’s NOT let that put a damper on the holiday season! I hope these tips will help you approach the holiday season with more joy and less fear. Please let me know your suggestions in the comments.

Living With Hearing Loss’s Tips to Survive and Thrive at Holiday Gatherings

1. Position yourself in a good spot: For me, it is very helpful if I have a wall behind me to block the background noise. If it is a seated meal, I try to sit near the middle of the table, which gives me a better shot at hearing more conversation. If it is a cocktail party, I scope out a quieter area of the room away from the music and high traffic areas like the buffet or bar area and try to spend time there. If the party is in multiple rooms, I head to the quieter room. You can invite some friends to come with you. I bet they will enjoy the lower volume too.
   

2. Avoid background noise when possible: If I am hosting, I always keep background music to a minimum. Other hosts may like to play music more loudly. Try asking your host to lower the volume a bit or to adjust the volume in different parts of the room or venue. I always ask restaurants to turn down the volume of the music too!
   

3. Converse with those next to you: At a seated dinner, don’t try to participate in conversations across large distances. If you would like to talk with someone, move closer to him, or ask that you continue the conversation when you have a chance to be closer together. If it is a party with multiple rooms, you can ask someone to join you in a quieter spot.
   

4. Wear your hearing aids: Many of us hate to wear our hearing aids, but they really can help. Experiment with a couple of different settings to find what is optimal. You can even practice at home if you don’t want to spend time experimenting at the event. It may take some time getting used to the new setting, but the investment of that time will be worth it.
   

5. Try other technologies: There are many new technologies now available that can help you hear in a group setting including personal FM systems or other one to one communication devices. Some of my friends swear by these.
   

6. Have reasonable expectations: You probably won’t hear everything that everyone says, but that is ok. Enjoy talking to the people near you, then seek out others to talk with during other parts of the party.
   

7. Take a break: Don’t be shy about taking a break from the action for a few minutes to give your ears and brain a rest. Head to the restroom, or find a quiet spot in another room. Or go stand outside for a few minutes. It really helps me to clear my head and build up some energy for another round of socializing.
   

8. Don’t fake it: It is very tempting to just nod along and pretend that you hear what others are saying or laugh just because others are laughing. But it can be dangerous, particularly if someone is asking you a question. Be brave and be honest with others if you are having trouble hearing. It will make your interactions more memorable on both sides.
   

9. Give visual clues to indicate if you are having trouble hearing: If you are having trouble hearing, you can cup your ear with your hand to indicate to the speaker to speak louder without interrupting the flow of the conversation. I have seen this in action and it is very effective.
   

10. Bring your sense of humor: It can be hard to keep it all in perspective during the holidays when you feel like you are missing out on the fun, but try to laugh a little and be grateful for the wonderful friends and family around you. You may not hear every word they say, but you can partake in all of the good feelings nonetheless. Try to enjoy the moment.

Readers, what tips do you have for enjoying the holidays when you have a hearing loss?

To read more posts by Shari Eberts, please visit her blog, Living With Hearing Loss

Puro Sound Labs Officially Launches Hearing-healthy Headphones for The Entire Family to Enjoy

California-based company to debut with the first ever studio-grade Bluetooth wireless headphones for kids

LA JOLLA, Calif., December 18, 2014 – Puro Sound Labs, a premiere consumer electronics audio company, is proud to announce their official launch into the market today. The company will provide consumers with premium quality, hearing-healthy, contemporary designed on-ear and over-ear headphone monitors at disruptive prices. Puro Sound Labs introduces the BT2200, Bluetooth “Kid-friendly” headphones with built-in volume optimization. This is the first in a line of products that aim to deliver this unique experience and value.  

The Puro Sound Labs BT2200 are Bluetooth headphones created specifically for kids and designed with the health and safety of a child as a priority. They will be the first ever and only studio-grade Bluetooth headphones on the market made especially for kids with volume limiting ear protection. Volume levels over 85 decibels (dB) have been known to cause hearing loss over time. Their unique headphone design protects children’s ears, while delivering studio-grade sound. With hearing health and education in mind, Puro Sound has committed to donating a portion of every sale of all Puro Sound products through 2015 to the Hearing Health Foundation.

“Noise-induced hearing loss is 100% preventable; however prolonged exposure to sounds that are 85 decibels (dB) or above, such as loud music, is often the culprit. By placing an 85 dB volume limit on their headphones, Puro Sound is taking significant strides towards protecting children’s hearing against premature hearing loss. We are excited to work together to achieve the same goal of both educating and providing consumers with hearing-friendly solutions,” said Claire Schultz, CEO, Hearing Health Foundation. “We are looking forward to their continued support and their on-going efforts towards our collective cause.” To find out more about safe listening levels and how to prevent hearing loss, visit us here.

Puro Sound Labs headphones are designed with a unique frequency response curve called Puro Balanced Response®, designed to recreate the natural sound produced in a perfectly tuned listening room in the headphone listening experience. This helps to maximize the satisfaction of Healthy Ears® hearing protection.

Great care has gone into the design and materials used in the headphones. A soft and supple cushioning material and durable lightweight aluminum are used to make the headphones comfortable for young ears and to stand up to everyday use. Their design also attenuates 82% of ambient noise, eliminating a need for higher volume limits. When combined, Puro’s Balanced Response® Curve and the headphones’ noise attenuation design, kids can enjoy their music with no need to exceed safe playback levels.

Parents will love them for their great value and hearing health while kids will love them for their comfort, wireless Bluetooth freedom and great sound. Plus, when employing Bluetooth wireless technology, the chance of a child getting tangled or caught on the headphones’ cable is reduced.

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• Unique volume governor system that limits sound output on most portable devices to 85 dB for parents’ peace of mind

• Puro Limiter cable insures 85 dB sound limit for the auxiliary wired experience

• Puro Balanced Response® equally balances bass, mids and highs, delivering clear, understandable vocal reproduction without excessive volume

• Ambient noise limiting by up to 82%* - even in noisy environments like an airplane, allowing for reasonable listening levels

• Integrated microphone for seamless use with a phone

• 18 Hours of Battery Life for Music Playback & 200 Hours Standby

• Durable, Lightweight Aluminum Construction

• Supple Protein Leather Ear Cushions and Headband

• Puro EQ App for iOS (Android coming soon)

• Folds Flat for Travel

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Puro Sound has also developed the Puro Sound Equalizer App, an iOS 16-band EQ application that allows headphones to be customized to the listener's sound and genre preferences. A version of the app for Android devices will be available after the first of the year.

“Using only the very best of science and engineering available, we have mastered the art of methodically replicating big room sound by fine-tuning our audio products with our signature Puro Balanced Response Curve. We are creating products that will lead to a new generation of premium sound entertainment and I am excited about what’s to come in 2015,” said Jason Wehner, CTO of Puro Sound Labs.

The “Kid-friendly” Puro Sound Labs BT2200 will be available for $79.99 in White/silver and Tan/gold colors and available through authorized online resellers including amazon.com and purosound.com.

*Source: Puro Sound Labs

About Puro Sound Labs
Established in 2014, Puro Sound Labs is a premiere consumer electronics audio company that designs innovative and audiophile quality audio products. Using only the very best of science and engineering available, Puro Sound Labs engineers have been able to master the art of methodically replicating big room sound and fine-tuning audio and introducing a new generation of premium sound entertainment. You know great sound when you hear it – Puro Sound Labs know the science behind creating it. For more information please visit www.purosound.com. 

About Hearing Health Foundation
Hearing Health Foundation is the largest private funder of hearing research, with a mission to prevent and cure hearing loss through groundbreaking research. Since 1958 Hearing Health Foundation has given away millions of dollars to hearing and balance research, including work that led to cochlear implant technology and now through the Hearing Restoration Project is working on a cure for hearing loss. Hearing Health Foundation also publishes Hearing Health magazine, a free consumer resource on hearing loss and related technology, research, and products. To learn more, subscribe to our magazine, or support this work, visit www.hhf.org.

Tips for Hearing Well in the Classroom

By Yishane Lee

It’s hard to hear well in school. Between the hard surfaces, open spaces such as gyms and cafeterias, shouting teachers, and the children themselves who can be counted on NOT to be quiet, it’s hard for hearing children as well as children with hearing loss to always hear well.

TED Talk speaker Julian Treasure says children sitting in the fourth row of a classroom lose as much of half of what is being said.

“Now that's not just deaf children. That could be any child who's got a cold, glue ear, an ear infection, even hay fever,” he says. “On a given day, one in eight children fall into that group. Then you have children for whom English is a second language, or whatever they're being taught in is a second language,” Treasure says in his TED Talk on why architects need to use their ears.

Fortunately, there are ways you can hear better in the classroom. Here are some tips.

• Sit in the front of the classroom, and make sure the classroom is well lit, particularly the teacher or whoever is doing the talking.

• Don’t sit too close to air conditioners and other appliances or machinery that can make it difficult to hear.

• Use assistive devices. As 7-year-old Samantha Brownlie recounts in the YouTube video about how she hears better in school, “Samantha’s Fun FM and Hearing Aid Book” (which you can now buy), an FM unit can help. The teacher wears a microphone around her neck that transmits wirelessly to Samantha’s hearing device.

• Schedule time with the teachers to review how to use the FM unit. As the parents of Lily, who wears bilateral cochlear implants, note in their blog post about prepping for school, “Make sure there is a management plan in place, especially for the FM unit.... There are so many moving parts.”

• Bring extra batteries and cords.

• Encourage the school to use drapes, carpets, and soundproofing material to help dim noise and reverberation.

• Consider auditory training programs that can help your child hear better in noise. A recent study in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America found that auditory training boosted speech understanding in school children with hearing loss by 50 percent, even three months after the study. The training involved practicing the comprehension of speech in the presence of “interrupted” white noise—white noise with brief silences. Read about auditory training programs and other tips for hearing better in noise in the Spring 2012 Hearing Health magazine “Hearing Aids 101” column.