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THIS PAGEA Parent's Guide to Hearing Loss
Produced by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program
Other Assistive Devices
Besides hearing aids, there are other devices that help people with hearing loss understand sound.
FM systems are commonly used for babies and young children
An FM system is a kind of device that helps children with hearing loss. FM stands for frequency modulation. It's the same type of signal used for radios. FM systems send sound from a microphone used by the person speaking to a baby wearing the receiver. This system is sometimes used with hearing aids. An extra piece is attached to the hearing aid that works with the FM system. This extra piece is called an "audio input boot".
Normally, when a person speaking is not standing next to a baby with hearing aids, the baby might hear other noises in the room. These extra noises might not be a problem for a baby without hearing loss. But for a baby with hearing loss, speech and other noises get mixed together and make the speech difficult to understand. With FM systems, the person who is speaking wears a microphone that sends the speech right to the baby's ears. This means the baby hears just the speech, without most of the unwanted noise.
Captioning
Many television programs, videos, and DVDs are captioned. Television sets made after 1993 are made to show the captioning. You don't have to buy anything special. Captions show the soundtrack of a program on the bottom of your television screen. If you have your child watch children's programs, you may want to turn on the captioning.
Other devices
There are many other devices available for children and adults with hearing loss. Some of these include:Please ask you baby's audiologist about these and other types of assistive listening devices
Glossary
FM System: An FM system is a kind of device that helps a person who is deaf or hard-of-hearing. FM stands for frequency modulation. It's the same type of signal used for radios. FM systems send sound from a microphone used by the person speaking to a baby wearing the device. This system is sometimes used with hearing aids. An extra piece is attached to the hearing aid that works with the FM system. This extra piece is called an "audio input boot".
Hearing aids: Hearing aids make sounds louder and clearer. Hearing aids are be worn by people of any age — including infants. Young babies with hearing loss can better understand sounds using hearing aids. This gives them the chance to learn speech skills right from birth.
TTY: TTY stands for Text Telephone or teletypewriter (sometimes called a TDD, or Telecommunication Device for the Deaf) and is used to type messages back and forth to one another person instead of talking and listening.
For more information or to order additional copies of "A Parent's Guide to Hearing Loss" visit CDC's website at www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/ehdi.