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Hearing impaired users often find it difficult to listen to voice over television, computer or public announcement systems due to background noise, music or poor sound quality. This paper presents a hearing impairment simulator that can help digital content developers to understand the auditory perception of hearing impaired users. Existing hearing impairment simulations often fail to publish results on validation or running the system on stored files. The present work describes validation result on a hearing impairment simulator and link to download the system that can simulate any sound stored as a wav file.

This work presents a simulator with a downloadable link to the software and results on a couple of user trials involving users with varying degrees of hearing impairment validating the system. The simulator also simulates frequency smearing which is not available in most online hearing impairment simulators. The simulator is part of a bigger project which also involves simulating visual, cognitive and motor impairment.

The result shows the present implementation can accurately simulate hearing perception for spoken voice. It also demonstrates that both frequency attenuation based on audiogram response and smearing are needed for accurate simulation as random frequency attenuation does not distort the sound well enough to be inaudible.

It should be noted that this simulation is not accurate enough to be used for medical purpose, rather aims to be an engineering tool to simulate approximately correct auditory perception of hearing impaired people. However, like other researches on user modelling and simulation in HCI, this simulator aims to enhance the design space where designers can optimize volume and quality of sound output and if necessary of background music or noise.

This paper presents a hearing impairment simulator that can help digital content developers to judge the sound quality of their content for hard of hearing users.

Existing literature on hearing impairment simulators either presents a software without detailed result on validation or focuses on detailed theoretical results on psychology without any easy deployable software. Most existing software also does not allow running simulation on stored file which limits their purpose. This work presents a simulator with a downloadable link to the software and results on a couple of user trials involving users with varying degrees of hearing impairment validating the system. The simulator also simulates frequency smearing which is not available in most online hearing impairment simulators.

Prevalence of hearing impairment is quite common in people with learning disabilities (double jeopardy). However, this debilitating co‐morbidity remains largely undetected by carers and professionals due to presence of additional disabilities and complex clinical presentation in this population on the one hand, and lack of specialist hearing impairment service provision and difficulty in accessing generic audiology services on the other hand. This article aims to provide practical guidance on assessment and management of hearing impairment in people with learning disabilities by offering a narrative review of available literature on gaps in service delivery.

Hearing loss impacts language and communication, a building block for relationships and society. Most teachers and professionals rarely have a young child with hearing loss in their classroom. The “unknown” can be a source of stress for the professionals and the families alike. Understanding the characteristics of this population of students, the diagnostic process, the possible early intervention supports, and practices to use with young children with hearing loss may help teachers and professionals approach students and families with more confidence. This chapter will outline each of the aforementioned with an emphasis on understanding parental perspective.

The world revolves around sound. Children who are deaf/hard of hearing (D/HH) lack access to sound, thus need careful monitoring and planning to ensure they have access to adequate language models and supports to develop a strong language foundation. It is this foundation that is needed to ensure D/HH children are able to achieve developmental and academic milestones. Research is emerging to suggest specific intervention strategies that can be used to support D/HH children from birth throughout their educational career. In this chapter, we highlight several strategies that can be used to support communication, language, academic, and social/emotional growth. We freely admit that this is in no way a comprehensive and exhaustive list, but rather only scratches the surface. The field of deaf education and related research and technology is constantly changing. To ensure adequate educational access, it is highly recommended that a professional specialized in hearing loss be a part of the educational team any time a child is identified as having any degree or type of hearing loss.

Despite developments in the fields of technology and health, some people may still have congenital or acquired disabilities. In our world, where one in every seven consumers is disabled, these consumers also have the right to utilize the services offered to them in the best way as the other six. With the developed technology and innovations, it has become easier and more inexpensive for disabled consumers to access products and services. The number of disabled consumers is also increasing day by day in the tourism sector. However, the designs of touristic products are not suitable for every type of disability. The concept in disabled tourism that is known as “Quiet Tourism” in the literature represents the group including consumers with hearing and speech loss. This section aims to present consumers with hearing and speech loss who have to continue their lives this way becoming a new market for accommodation firms and what types of difficulties and opportunities may be encountered. It is aimed to show that the existing infrastructure at accommodation firms is not adequate, but there is a considerable potential.

The education of deaf and hard of hearing (d/DHH) students is largely dependent on the preferred mode of communication. Historically, the mode of communication for d/DHH students was determined by society rather than by students and families. This resulted in divisiveness between the Deaf culture and proponents of oral communication. The adoption of IDEA allowed family participation in the decision-making process. Advances in technology increased student access to sound, resulting in more educational placement options. Despite the positive changes, the complex nature of hearing loss and the wide variety in cultural considerations have made it difficult to determine the best approach to deaf education. Thus, educators and providers are left in a conundrum of which version of “traditional” deaf education is best for students.

Students with communication disorders present unique challenges to educators working toward fostering an inclusive classroom. For children with speech/language impairments, expressing themselves either academically or socially may present obstacles requiring communicative support and facilitation. For children with hearing loss, full access to educational material will be difficult without technological and/or visual support. Many children may have a combination of disorders, requiring a team of educators and other professionals to provide educational content and classroom support in the most inclusive way possible. This chapter is intended to provide an overview of variety of communication disorders, along with guidelines for improving student access across educational settings.

With a push toward inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education classroom, students who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) are exposed to greater educational opportunities. Given the largely verbal nature of traditional classroom instruction, there has been a need for advancements in technology to provide more access to the material covered by teachers and in class discussions. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic and the transition to virtual learning also brought to light many additional challenges for the DHH population, which can, in part, be lessened through technological advancements.

Using life history interviews with 10 college-educated Deaf women, this chapter investigates how the women saw themselves “between worlds” and how they balanced being both workers and mothers. While considering Gabel and Peters’ (2004) call for a theory of resistance in the field of disability studies along with Garland-Thomson (2004) who argues for a feminist disability studies theory, the author argues that when theorizing about the construction of a worker, which is a fluid identity, it is necessary to consider notions of gender along with ability and to note places where individuals resist stereotypes placed on them by the larger society. The women of this study resisted ideas of deafness as a “disability” and did things to show they were a linguistic minority and part of the Deaf community. Teaching, in certain contexts, was a place where they educated people about their deafness and became, in their words, “lifetime educators.” Those who worked in hearing offices developed strategies such as being lifetime educators, self-advocates, volunteering in these offices, and often denying a part of their Deaf identity.

Deafness and hearing impairments have a very interesting and ancient history. The term hearing impairments is used here to refer to any dysfunction of the hearing organ, regardless of the etiology, degree of hearing loss, and service provision implications. The history of hearing impairments can be traced back to centuries before Christ (BC). For instance, around 1000 BC a Hebrew law provided those with deafness and hearing impairments limited rights to own property and marry. Nonetheless, although this law protected people with hearing impairments from being cursed and maltreated by others, it did not grant them full participation in rituals of the temple (ASLInfo, 2010). People with hearing impairments were considered to be “subnormal” by great philosophers of that time. For instance, between 427 and 347 BC, Plato's philosophy of innate intelligence was the vogue. It claimed that all intelligence was present at birth. Therefore, all people were born with ideas and languages in their minds and required only time to demonstrate their outward sign of intelligence through speech. People with hearing impairments could not speak and were therefore considered incapable of rational thoughts and ideas. Indeed in 355 BC Aristotle was reported to have claimed that those who were born deaf would become stupid and incapable of reason. According to him, people with hearing impairments could not be educated because without the ability to hear, people could not learn. Greek which was spoken in his society was considered the perfect language and all people who did not speak Greek including people with deafness were considered Barbarians (ASLInfo, 2010).