Common tips include focusing on one person at a time, choosing areas where background noise is minimized, and focusing on face of the person to whom you’re talking. The last tip is especially important for those skilled in reading lips.

The number of skilled lip-readers might soon be growing, thanks to research out of the eighth International Conference on Auditory-Visual Speech Processing. A study presented at the conference found that for the first time ever, computers are able to read lips better than their human counterparts. The computers were able to do so well by exploiting small but simple differences in images lip shapes, rather than the more complex full-video required by human lip-readers.

This technology has been used in a new series of videos to that were able to teach humans to read lips for one-syllable words: no easy task.

The study’s lead author, Sarah Hilder said, “With just four hours of training it helped them improve their lip-reading skills markedly. We hope this research will represent a real technological advance for the deaf community.”

Hopefully, this new lip-reading technology can seamlessly combine with the ever-changing hearing-aid technology to foster better, easier communication for the 36 million Americans suffering from hearing loss.

With all of the fascinating technology being developed on a near-daily basis, hearing aids seem – and have become – thoroughly modern devices. However, the history of hearing aids stretches back several decades, to a brilliant physicist and author named Harvey Fletcher.

Fletcher’s prototypical hearing aids were worn on the body, and consisted of an ear mold connected to a case about the size of a deck of playing cards. This case was connected to the mold via a loop, and attached to the belt or pocket of the wearer. Because of their great size, they were capable of great feats of amplification; through their bulkiness and unwieldiness they have been replaced  by “behind the ear” hearing aids. Still, for the time, they represented a watershed moment in hearing amplification.

Behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids are tubes that wrap, fittingly enough, behind the ear of the hearing loss sufferer. They provide sound through air conduction through this length of tubing. Because they keep the ear open, they allow the user to retain use of whatever hearing they have left, and are therefore appropriate for those with mild-to-moderate hearing loss.

Hearing  aid technology progressed further with the development of In-The-Ear (ITE) hearing aids. These devices go directly into the ear canal. Further advancements have created digital hearing aids that are programmable and can come with a number of exciting and helpful accessories.

Even less obtrusive in every-day conversation are implantable hearing aids. These aids can be implanted directly into the bone of people who suffer from hearing loss, in a procedure that can be recovered from in mere hours. Extended-wear hearing aids have also been introduced, allowing hearing loss sufferers to hear clearly on a daily basis without worrying about taking an aid in or out frequently.

The history of hearing aids is fascinating, and ever changing. The sheer amount of accumulated knowledge that has resulted in the modern class of hearing loss technology is astounding.

Without properly functioning batteries, hearing aids are little more than extremely expensive earplugs.

The most common type of battery is known as “Zinc Air”. This type of battery is operated by the oxidation of zinc with the oxygen present in air around us. Because Zinc is readily available, these batteries are easily produced and retain terminal voltage until 80-85% depletion. Furthermore, they are easily stored and last a long time – provided the tab isn’t pulled.

Zinc-Air batteries for hearing aids come equipped with a tab, that, once pulled, will activate the battery and begin the process of depletion. When pulled, the tab allows water and oxygen in the air to mix with particles of zinc and an electrolyte (usually potassium hydroxide), forming zincate and releasing electrons. Once this process is started, the tab can’t be reattached, so it is best to keep tabs on until the battery needs to be used. Because t he tabs are held in place with sticky glue, they can come off in hot environments without the wearer knowing . It is generally not a very good idea to place these batteries in extremely hot environments for extended periods (for example in cars in the summer).

No matter your hearing aid, proper battery usage is crucial to maintaining good function.

Hearing loss has a variety of negative impacts for it’s sufferer.

One common one is impairment that results in inability to distinguish high-frequency sounds. Traditionally, the greater the hearing loss, the more gain needs to be applied at that frequency. However, for some people, hearing sensitivity is so poor in the high frequencies that it is not possible to provide sufficient gain and achieve audibility. In many cases, the gain is limited by acoustic feedback or by discomfort, resulting from excessive loudness. Cochlear damage renders these sorts of frequency problems with hearing:

>>An inability to recognize certain speech sounds

>>Difficulty distinguishing high-pitched background sounds–like bird chirps and songs

>>Difficulty in maintaining speech quality

>>Difficulty, especially in children, in developing proper speech

These hearing loss challenges are by no means easy; however, Phonak has developed a revolutionary new technology to help combat it.

It’s known as SoundRecover, and it compresses high-frequency noise into lower frequencies–where a person suffering from hearing loss can better distinguish them.

Because only a selected range of frequencies is targeted (those above a given range), SoundRecover is able to more accurately combat high-frequency hearing loss. Not only is SoundRecover active all the time, the settings are based on the user’s hearing loss, which means better compression, and an overall better hearing aid for the patient.

To learn more about SoundRecover, visit the Phonak’s website.