September 2012 Meeting: "Hearing Impaired at the Hospital"

Missing information when talking to a doctor or nurse can not only be frustrating but also potentially life threatening. Medicine dosages, conflicts with other drugs and schedules for taking the medicine all need to be heard and understood clearly. What do you do when you go to a medical appointment? What can you do to make sure you have heard and understood instructions properly? How do you ensure that the doctor has heard and understood YOU!
Come to our September meeting and hear what advice Colette Noble from NorCal Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing has to offer on "Hearing Impaired at the Hospital".
Our meeting will be on SEPTEMBER 20th, at 10.00 am at the Davis Senior Center located at 646 A Street, Davis. All are welcome.

PRESCHOOL HEARING TESTS OFFERED BY HEAR! HERE!

The meeting of Hearing Loss Association of America (Hear! Here!), at 10 a.m. on March 26 at Woodland Community and Senior Center, will be of interest to a wide range of people concerned with hearing loss in children. Hear! Here! is dedicated to diagnosing if a child in preschool has a possible hearing loss in order to give them a better chance of learning when entering elementary school.  Parents and teachers of preschool children can easily overlook a hearing loss because the disability is not readily evident and sometimes is only found with a hearing test.

Children need to be able to hear, because hearing affects language and speech development, social and emotional well-being, and academic achievement. Parents and teachers are often unaware of a child’s loss of hearing until the child receives a hearing test in public elementary school. Private elementary schools seldom provide hearing tests.

Hear! Here! has an annual program to provide free hearing tests to preschool children in Yolo County, ages 4 and 5, to alert parents to a possible hearing loss. The Hear! Here! meeting will explain details of the local group’s program and describe, with illustrations, the process of arranging for tests at preschools, the licensed testing company, the source of funding, and the opportunity for volunteers to participate in screening children for hearing loss before they enter elementary school.

"Surviving the Holidays With Hearing Loss"

Hear! Here!'s November meeting offers all our members an opportunity to think about and share the challenges associated with "Surviving the Holidays With Hearing Loss". It is also an excellent opportunity for spouses, parents, other family members, and friends to explore the issues of sharing the Holiday Season with someone who has a hearing loss. Some of the topics to be discussed are:

• How to prepare for traveling
• How to be a good host at family dinners
• Hearing better in noisy situations 
• What to do when you can't take anymore
• Finding Holiday Joy
• Solutions for deaf children

 This will be an open meeting with informal seating giving everyone plenty of opportunity to share their own experiences and issues. All are encouraged to attend.

The meeting will be held on at 10.00am,Thursday, November 17th. at the Davis Senior Center located at 646 A Street, Davis. Refreshments will be served.

LOOPING-communicating without external equipment!

Julia Tanner, Doctorate in Audiology, spoke at the September Hear! Here! general meeting held in Davis on the subject of "looping". Looping is a system of wiring a room or designated area so that wearers of hearing aids with a T Coil option can switch to that setting and receive a clear audio signal free of outside noise.The system does not require the hearer to wear any external equipment and with 60% of hearing aids having a T Coil looping is a very attractive choice for many.  The system works very well in lecture halls, churches and other large venues while in Europe many personal service areas such as banks, cashier areas and ticket offices offer looping for individual member of the public. Clare Childers, a member of Hear! Here!, first experienced looping at a conference and rated the system highly as she was able to hear the speaker very, very clearly. A rare experience for Clare with other hearing assisted systems.
Dr. Tanner informed the audience that the system is not really designed to facilitate group conversations although some hearing aids allow the wearer to have a microphone in use at the same time.However, because of its ability to improve the quality of sound and of word discrimination looping is especially useful for television viewing allowing the hard of hearing viewer to adjust the sound to a level that works for them while allowing other viewers to have the sound set lower, as well as in the lecture hall.

There was a short test at the meeting of a temporary looping system that was set up around the edge of the audience followed by an opportunity to discuss individual questions with both Dr. Tanner and her regular installer. Installation for a TV system usually runs around $250.00 and the looping is installed in such a manner as not to be noticeable.

Dr. Tanner told the group that she believes so strongly in looping that she offers it to all her private patients and she is working on a long term project to get as many public meeting venues located in the Sacramento Area looped. Currently two churches are looped, Holy Spirit on Land Park Drive, and Fremont Presbyterian on H Street. If you are a member of a church or organization that may benefit from installing a looping system or if you have a venue in Davis that you would like to suggest to Dr. Tanner you may contact her at: hearingsolution@sbcglobal.net. To view more information go to her website at: www.thehearingsolution.com.

CA Telephone Access Program [CTAP] Presentation a success

The "Demonstration of Telephones for the Hearing and Mobility Impaired" by Love Miller at the Hear! Here! general meeting held at the Davis Senior Center on April 21st  was wonderfully clear and concise. Ms. Miller covered about 10 different phones currently offered to California Residents through the CA Telephone Access Program [CTAP]. The phones cover a variety of needs for people who have difficulty seeing, hearing, speaking, remembering or moving.  Even though there was a lot of information available about the phones Love still managed to made it very easy to understand the differences between the various phones that are now available.

Some of the features offered on the phones were:

• Volume Control
• Tone Control [making the sounds clearer]
• Amplification
• Speaker phones
• External Bell [can be placed so when the phone rings it can be heard]
• Cordless
• Lit Keys
• Ring Alert [flashes so you know the phone is ringing]
• Pager [beeps so you can locate the phone if it is not on its cradle]
• Memory Dials
• Talk Back [Vision-tells you what number you have dialed]
• Big Buttons [Vision-Arthritis-Parkinson's]
• LED screen that displays the words been said by the other party [godsend to those that miss words over the phone]

These specialized telephones and devices are free to qualified individuals and are available through local CTAP Service Centers. Ms. Miller emphasised that selection of the right kind of phone was essential for customer satisfaction. There are three easy steps to file for a phone:

1. Complete the application [available on the web-site address below] providing your name and address and contact information
2. Have the second part of the application form completed by an authorized certified agent [MD, Audiologist, Hearing Aid Dispenser amongst others]
3. Mail, Fax or bring the form into the Service Center nearest you [see below for the Sacramento Center's Information].

If mailing or faxing in the information allow a week before contacting the Center. You will then be asked some questions over the phone to determine which is the right phone for you. If you bring the application into the center yourself then staff will help you test the phones. The Service Centers and all their staff members are committed to helping you try out and test the phones ahead of time so you end up with the phone you really need. There is rarely a wait and the help is one to one...so important when hearing is an issue!

The cost of this program is covered by a small surcharge that all telephone users in California pay as part of their telephone bill and anyone who needs one should be aware of and make use of this excellent program.

Ms. Miller also pointed out that if you have had a phone through the program for any length of time you may want to look at the newer models, it may be time trade in for an upgrade.

These phones definitely make it easier to hear, to dial and to stay connected. Thanks Love for making this a very interesting and useful presentation!

SACRAMENTO SERVICE CENTER
2033 Howe Avenue
Suite 150
CA 95825

1-800-806-1191

Check out CTAP's website for more information:  http://www.ddtp.org/

EXCITING MEETING SCHEDULED TO HELP EVERYONE STAY CONNECTED!

The next meeting of Hear! Here! features Love Miller demonstrating a variety of phones for people with special needs. These phones offer different features such as big buttons, picture dialing, speech assistance, amplification and captioning. They are designed to make the telephone easier to use, by making it easier hear, easier to dial and easier to call. They are used by people with seeing, speaking and moving problems as well as people with a hearing loss.

The telephones are provided to all those that need them free of charge under the State of California's Public Utilities Commission Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program.This is a great opportunity to learn about what is currently available to all qualified residents of California through this State funded program. These machines can dramatically improve your communication and help you stay connected to your family members, friends, business partners and everyday contacts. Please plan to join us on April 21st. at 10.00 am in the Davis Senior Center located at 646 A street, Davis. All meetings of Hear! Here! are open to all and everyone is welcome.

P.S. Did you know that the Advisory Board of Hear! Here! is always looking for speakers that can provide informative and interesting data to the general public on all topics dealing with hearing loss. If you would like to be a presenter or have a suggestion please speak to one of us at the meeting or e-mail us at: hearherewoodland@gmail.com.

"Going to Court? Inform the Court before you Go!"

Windy and Rainy as it was on Thursday Febuary 17th, Kara Clarkson and Julie Burton from Yolo County Superior Court came to the Davis Senior Center and talked to us about the services the courts offer to the hard of hearing. While, California Rules of Court, rule 1.100(g) requires that the court accommodates people with disabilities; Kara, the Interpreter Services Coordinator, emphasised that Yolo County Superior Court staff were dedicated to ensuring that qualified persons with disabilities, such as a hearing impediment, be provided with equal and full access to the courts. "This is a fundamental right." stated Kara at the beginning of her talk. "Let us know what you need so we can accommodate you to the best of our abilities."
Using a microphone system similar to the LISTEN system that the courts use for Assisted Listening, everyone in the room was able to hear Kara loud and clear as she proceeded to describe the three different accommodations currently available to the hearing impaired. They are:

• ASSISTED LISTENING DEVICES
• REAL TIME TRANSCRIPTION and
• AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE

ASSISTED LISTENING DEVICES work with the microphones that are situated in the courtrooms at the judge's, attorney's and clerk's desks. The sound is transmitted to a handheld device which the hearing impaired person is given. Each courtroom, including small claims, traffic and family court, have about four of these devices and they can simply be requested from the bailiff at the time you attend court.

REAL TIME TRANSCRIPTION is provided by a court reporter who types what is being said into a computer, where a program then displays the words onto a small screen which the hearing impaired person has in front of them. It takes quite some skill to be able to type, accurately, as fast as a person can talk and so this service has to be requested ahead of time. The service is normally available for Jury service or if the hearing impaired person is either a Defendant or a Plaintiff. Clare Childers, Hear Here's Coordinator spoke very highly of this service which she has actually used. At the moment there are only two court reporters who provide real time transcription and so both Kara and Julie mentioned how, in order to avoid scheduling problems, it was critical that this service be arranged for ahead of time. The form needed to request the accommodation is available at the courthouse or at their website: http://www.yolo.courts.ca.gov/.

AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE interpreters are also available when requested ahead of time using the same form.

At the moment English is the only language available for all three of the systems. Julie, the ADA coordinator for the Superior Court, mentioned that the courts have not been asked for accommodation in any other language. However, if this situation was to come up, the court staff would do their best to find a translator.

NEW COURTHOUSE
During the question and answer session the new Yolo County Superior Courthouse was mentioned and Julie noted that she hoped that the system for providing Assisted Listening might be a more up-todate version than the courts currently have. Clare Childers told Julie and Kara that input from the hearing impaired during the design and construction period is very important and she hopes that will occur. Julie promised to pass that on.

WE MUST SPEAK OUT
The importance of the hearing impaired speaking up in situations like this can not be overestimated. We need to let the people charged with providing us service know what works and does not work...it benefits all of society to have clear, effective communication available to all and there is no more important setting for this need than in a courtroom.

Both Kara and Julie showed their commitment to providing the people of Yolo County with excellent service by stating that if anyone is not sure how to go about requesting accommodations, or have issues with how their request is being handled, then they should feel free to contact either one of them directly. Their contact information can be found below.


Kara Walker Clarkson
Interpreter Services Coordinator
(530) 406-6708
kwclarkson@yolo.courts.ca.gov

Julie Ann Burton
Court Operations Supervisor
Court Services
(530) 406-6707
jburton@yolo.courts.ca.gov

For anyone interested in further reading on this subject go to:
http://hlaa.convio.net/site/R?i=ELbJxXM3xUFTB2j0N6OzJA..for a very interesting article from the Hearing Loss Association of America

October Meeting discusses holiday time for the hearing impaired

Holidays are coming up. At our October meeting we had some great hints for surviving family gatherings without being left out. First to remember is: Plan Ahead. Realize that large social groups are one of the most difficult environments for a person with hearing loss. Be kind to yourself and focus on the positive things you can do.


It’s easier to talk with people one-on-one in a quiet area, so find a quieter corner. Bring something to share (photos?), sit in another (quiet) room and invite people one at a time to come look at your pictures (of a vacation trip? your garden? the big fish!).

When sitting down to dinner, choose a seat that is best for you. If you have a “better” side, position yourself to hear on that side. Avoid sitting next to one who does not speak distinctly. Ask your host to turn off background music (or the football game) during dinner – or have the TV on mute.

BILL FAIRFIELD OF MUMBO GUMBO AT MONDAY'S MEETING in DAVIS

Noise-induced hearing loss is something that can happen for many reasons; being around construction machinery; near loud amplified music for long periods of time; being too close to gun fire; working in industrial settings with heavy equipment; and using large agricultural machinery are prime examples.
Come learn from Betty McNamara, a Woodland Healthcare audiologist, how extended periods of exposure to loud noise levels can cause permanent hearing loss; from Billy Wagster, Yolo County's Veterans Service Officer, how help is being offered to our veterans with hearing loss resulting from military service; and listen to Bill Fairfield's personal story of his hearing loss which happened while he was playing in the rock band Mumbo Gumbo.

REMINDER: this meeting is being held this Monday the 26th, at 10.00am in the DAVIS SENIOR CENTER at 646 A Street, Davis

NEXT MEETING: Monday, March 22, 2 p.m.at the Woodland Community and Senior Center, 2001 East Street, Woodland
TOPIC:
Summer Camp for children with hearing loss. Leading the presentation about the Lions Wilderness Camp for Deaf Children will be Franklin Anderson, Lions board vice president of Camp Ross Relles near Nevada City.
The Lions Service for Children Projects addresses needs for children in disadvantaged circumstances. Deaf and hard-of hearing kids often lack social opportunities that other children enjoy because of communication difficulties. At Camp Ross Relles, the deaf and hard-of-hearing child may enjoy camping with their peers in a setting especailly designed for children with hearing loss.
Join us there!

HOT DOG of a Meeting

WOW, What a meeting we had last Monday.

To begin with we watched a DVD from the Sam Simon Program, headquartered in Malibu, on the training
and use of dogs for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. The program uses
carefully selected dogs rescued from the pound. These dogs have to be:

Confident: Outgoing: a Assertive: Friendly: and Healthy!

We also learnt that Hearing Dogs provide their owners an amazing variety of services including:
Alerting the owner to smoke alarms, door bells and phones that are ringing; Informing the owner that food has finished cooking both on the stove and in the microwave; Bringing back items the owner may have dropped; and Ensuring that the owner knows if someone is calling them or talking to them from behind.

  One very poignant moment in the DVD was when a ten year old boy talked about how he feels much safer when he is walking down the street as his dog will alert him if there is someone behind him. I think that hearing people so not realize how isolating being totally deaf can be and how that must be, especially for children. The boy's mother says that having a Hearing Dog has helped her son become more socially active with the other children in the neighborhood and by extension more of a typical teenager.
After the DVD we were treated to seeing two Canine Companions for Independence [CCI] dogs, Cali and Caspir and their owners, Don and Walis, do their thing!

Cali is a Hearing Dog and demonstrated all the techniques she has for keeping Don her owner alerted to what is happening around him. She responded to a timer going off, she noticed when Don dropped his keys and picked them up for him, she went and got his attention when Walis called to him from across the room.

Walis, the owner  of Caspir, gave the group an understanding of the rigorous training that CCI dogs have to undergo in order to qualify to be a certified  Hearing Dog. Only 20% of dogs make it all the way through the training. Training is spread out over the first 2 1/2 years of the life of the dog with the last 6 months or so being on training specifically for work as a Hearing Dog.

Owners are also required to go to two weeks intensive training during which they are matched with a dog.
There is final test where the owner and dog go out to a busy public venue such as a mall to test the dogs ability to perform complex tasks in a noisy crowded area.  

                        
One thing that Walis told us that is pretty amazing is that she is teaching her dog Caspir to respond to American Sign Language...which she demonstrated for us.

It was quite impressive to see both these dogs working in public and being so very responsive to their owners. Both dogs ignored everyone else in the room until at the end of the class they were given permission to "release" and then they were just the friendliest dogs you could image.

YES, it really was a great demonstration and we have to thank Don, Walis , Cali and Caspir for giving up their time and sharing the wonder of these dogs with us. They made you want to run out and get a dog right away!

Dogs at November Meeting!

What a treat! At next Monday's November meeting we will hear from members of the Canine Companions on the training of Hearing Loss Dogs! These are amazing companions for the people who can't hear the doorbell or telephone. Did you know that hearing dogs are allowed on planes when you fly? They can even let you know when your microwave signals "Food is ready"

A hearing loss dog will be on hand to demostrate...

NOVEMBER 16TH 2 p.m.
WOODLAND COMMUNITY AND SENIOR CENTER

ROOM WILL BE SIGNED AT ENTRY

See you all there!