Older adults suffered in multiple ways during the COVID-19 pandemic. They were cut off from families, fearful of leaving their homes while becoming ever more isolated from others. They had to limit shopping, medical appointments and travel. The learnings that emerged from the pandemic were a wakeup call about the role of technology, especially internet access and smartphones, could have played in mitigating even a small portion of that isolation. This is especially true with persons with hearing loss. Smartphones have become increasingly important to persons with hearing loss, enabling them to connect with others and access vital information when away from their home. Further, with today’s decline in landline phones, smartphones are becoming the only in-home communication device.
Smartphones and apps matter for persons with hearing loss
Smartphones coupled with Bluetooth enabled hearing aids can assist the hearing aid user in ways never thought possible, like receiving phone calls through the hearing aid, streaming music, books and podcasts. They can modify the acoustic response of the hearing aid to enhance hearing in specific listening situation like church or a favorite dining establishment, adjust volume, noise reduction, tone balance, remote microphone, why they even offer GPS tracking to let you know where your “stray” hearing aid is.
Captioning
Displaying spoken words as written text (captioning) can provide important benefits for people with hearing loss. At one time, captioning was performed by human translators, and used primarily for TV and movies.
In recent years, with the development of automatic speech recognition using artificial intelligence (AI), speech-to-text (STT)services have mushroomed. Computer based captioning services are now common, low cost and available in real time. For example, Hamilton CaptTel and Caption Call telephones use voice recognition technology to provide a written text on a large, very easy to read screen.
InnoCaption and Olelo recent entrants into the field of captioning services, is a free app for a mobile smartphone or device that provides real-time captioning of any call. This service can be a great aid to people with hearing loss who may have difficulty hearing on their mobile phone. Google, which owns YouTube uses LiveTranscribe to translate to transcribe uploaded videos to display text in more than 100 languages. Microsoft provides SST services in 85 languages and zoom, the video conferencing service that has become popular during the pandemic, is partnering with OTTER is providing captioning during zoom calls.
As computer-based automatic speech recognition algorithms improve, SST services will provide even greater benefits to people with hearing loss. Numerous guides for buying a smartphone exist, including from AARP as well as Senior Planet Digital offered by OATS (Older Adult Technology Services). Hearing healthcare professionals like Central Illinois Hearing can also play a role in providing hearing aids that can couple to these amazing devices and create personalized hearing programs for effective communication. Not only are these exciting apps available today-we can be certain there are new, innovative apps on the horizon we’ve yet to imagine