Could New Technology Help the Deaf?
Deaf people deal with many challenges. Hearing aids help, but have limitations. The best hearing aids are very expensive. Yet, most health care companies do not cover hearing aids. This leaves many deaf people using hearing aids that do not fulfill their needs. Many deaf people in developed countries practice lip reading to supplement their hearing aids. However, much of the world’s population cannot afford a hearing aid and are forced to use lip reading, for their only means of understanding what is said. Lip reading can be tricky though. For example, the letters p and b in English look much the same on the lips when spoken.
Researchers at MIT are working on a way to help deaf people to lip read more effectively. The device they are working on vibrates differently depending on the sound that it picks up. This is a simple technology that deaf people can use to distinguish different sounds and supplement their lip reading skills, making lip reading much easier for them. More importantly, because of the relatively simplistic nature of the device, it will be cheap to produce. MIT says, they believe most deaf people around the world will have this technology within our lifetime.
