Closed Captioning State Law

A new Minnesota law requires candidates for state-level offices to include closed captioning in advertising. That means professionally produced ads that run on television and internet videos of two minutes or more will have to provide text. Transcripts of radio ads must be posted on the candidate's Web site. The exceptions: Judicial candidates are exempt. And ads for senate and presidential campaigns won’t have to abide by the law because they fall under federal campaign rules.

Hearing Loss Among the Young

A new study suggests more young Americans may be suffering from hearing loss than what has previously been reported. Here are some of the findings:

• 16% (about 29 million people) have hearing loss in one (9%) or both ears (7%)
• 31% (about 55 million people) had high-frequency hearing loss (12% in one ear and 19% in both)
• Hearing loss was especially prevalent at high frequencies for people age 20 to 29 (8.5%) and age 30 to 39 (17%)
• Men were 5.5 times more likely than women to have hearing loss
• Black participants were 70% less likely to have loss of hearing than white participants with white
• Mexican American men having the highest occurrence of both high-frequency hearing loss and hearing loss in both ears.

Details of the study are published are in the July 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

Deaf Hockey Coach

Devils Lake High School in Dickinson, North Dakota has a new hockey coach – who’s deaf. David Zimmerman has been an assistant coach at the school for the past six seasons. He uses hearing aids and reads lips to communicate and played hockey during his entire time in high school. For two decades, Zimmerman has given himself to coaching peewee and bantam hockey teams.

Getting to Know… Videophones

Callers see an interpreter on their TV screen and sign a message to the interpreter, who then contacts the hearing recipient on a standard phone line and relays the conversation between the two parties.

Video Relay Services (or VRS) help the deaf to call hearing people. The customer dials a toll-free number and sees a picture of an interpreter on a home television screen. The operator contacts the desired hearing person and then serves as a go-between the two parties, signing to the deaf person and speaking to the hearing person, just as they would do in person. The service is free to the deaf because the cost is underwritten by the universal access surcharge that telephone users pay.

When video relay began in January 2002 only about 7200 minutes where used each month. That rose to more than 3 million minutes last year, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

Large Companies offering Video Relay Service: Sprint, AT&T, Verizon/MCI, Hamilton and Sorenson

Tennitus Survey

A survey of annoyance levels for tinnitus sufferers. Tennitus is a a ringing, buzzing or whistling sound in one or both ears occurring without outside stimulus.

How Annoying is it?

• 39.2% - mildly distressed 23.9% - severely distressed
• 12.8% - most severely distressed

How Loud is it?

• 60% - medium degree of tinnitus loudness
• 32% - strong degree of tinnitus loudness
• 8% - rated their condition as weak

Source: Archives of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery

New Testing Rules in Tennessee

Tennessee has joined 43 other states and begun requiring all newborns to undergo a hearing test before leaving the hospital. Testing is also required on children born outside of hospitals within 48 hours. The Tennessee rules went into effect in July first.

Twitter and 12seconds

Twittering is a social networking site that is growing so fast that it is wrestling with the problem of going down from too many users trying to access it. A good problem to have.

Twittering is sort of micro-blogging or perhaps Group IM (instant messaging). Like the status updates on Facebook, twittering explains what I’m doing right now in just a few words. Ten, 20, a 100 people may be signed in to get my twitters.

Working on the same premise is 12seconds. You create video updates that are 12 seconds in length – a similar limitation to Twitter’s 140 character limit.

Deafness in America

About 7.8 million Americans 15 year of age and older had difficulty hearing a normal conversation, including 1 million who were deaf in 2004, according to US Census Bureau. That puts the number of deaf in the US to be about 10% of the total population. An estimated 50-70,000 Americans under 18 are profoundly deaf. And it's estimated that 78 million Americans will have hearing loss in the next quarter century.

Prelingually

A "prelingually Deaf" person is someone who is either born deaf or who lost his or her hearing early in childhood, before acquiring language.

Family Income

More than half of those with severe to profound hearing loss have a family income of less than $25,000. Source: Project HOPE.

My Heart Glow

There’s a new book coming out that explains to children how American Sign Language got its start. Written by Emily Arnold McCully, My Heart Glow: Alice Cogswell, Thomas Gallaudet and the Birth of American Sign Language tells the true story of a deaf child, Alice Cogswell, and her teacher Thomas Gallaudet. She inspires him to help found the first permanent school for deaf children back in 1817. Gallaudet had seen sign languages among American Indians and traveled to France to look for the best teaching methods. The American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut helped with research. The illustrated book retails for $15.99.

Earphones to Protest Your Hearing

A British company says it’s come up with a way to provide music lovers great audio at a low volume – a combination necessary for protecting hearing. Advanced Communication Solutions is offering custom-molded earphones for $1000. With nearly all external noise blocked out, listeners can drop the volume of MP3 player by half.

Deaf Rabbi

Darby Leigh is the new assistant rabbi at B’nai Keshet, a synagogue in Montclair, New Jersey. The 35-year-old profoundly deaf man is the son of deaf parents. Leigh toured with the National Theater of the Deaf before attending rabbinical school to learn Hebrew. Leigh was the first male, deaf student to attend on of the major rabbinical seminaries in the US. Here is a video about him. (no captioning)

Hearing Damage Comes Fast

Nine-out-of-ten young people who had spent the night at a club or loud bar had hearing damage – after just one night. The study by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People found nearly all of them had symptoms of dull hearing, ringing in the ears and over-sensitivity to sound. The charity is launching a competition for fashionable earplugs as a result since only 3% of youth wear them.

Cochlear Market Expected To Surge

A new study predicts a surge in sales of cochlear implants over the next four years. The market is projected to grow from $725 million in 2008 to $1.59 billion in 2012, according to Neurotech Reports. More than 130,000 devices are already in use worldwide. The average cost of implant surgery is around $30,000.

M-TV Show Features Cochlear Implants

MTV's show True Life airing today at 1pm will feature a teen and college student who were born profoundly deaf and chose to have cochlear implant surgery. They have the devices installed and activated – all the while cameras are rolling. The award-winning documentary series showcases real-life stories of young people. The episode titled True Life: I'm Deaf was shot last winter. One student is a 22-year-old from Maryland attending college and the other is a teen from New Jersey.

Grace's Law

A New Jersey bill has passed the state Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee that would require health insurance companies to provide $1000 in coverage for hearing aids for children under age of 16 every two years. The legislation is called Grace’s Law and is named for Grace Gleba, an 8-year-old girl has a severe hearing impairment. Her mother, Jeanine Gleba started lobbying lawmakers to pass the bill nine years ago.

Implant Maker Sees Strong Sales

A new cochlear implant produced by Med-El is doing very well. The company says sales of its Opus 2 speech processor is up more than 30%. The latest version of the devise received FDA approval in April. It has switch-free operation and works with wireless FM and Bluetooth. Based in North Carolina, Med-El is the third largest hearing-implant company in the world.

Boy's Implants Stolen Twice-CNN

(no captioning)

Implant Maker to Pay Million Dollar Fine

Federal regulators have reached a settlement with Advanced Bionics over changes to production of one of its cochlear implants which could have exposed patients to unnecessary health risks. The California hearing device manufacturer agreed to pay a civil money penalty of more than $1 million. The head of the company will pay $75,000. Advanced Bionics issued a recall of the the HiRes90k Implantable Cochlear Stimulator in 2006 since materials for the implant came from an unapproved supplier. The FDA says excessive moisture that could leak into the devices and cause device failure and lead to possible surgery. Advanced Bionics admitting no liability.