This is the life of a hearing-impaired person.

We are not deaf, and, therefore, most of us do not read lips, sign or wear hearing devices 100% of the time. We try to preserve whatever hearing we have left. We walk softly on the fine line between the hearing and deaf communities.

Even our friends are selected carefully. We cultivate friendships based on who is sensitive to our needs. They are the people who are willing to speak a little louder and more distinctly. They are the people who are willing to repeat themselves if they see from your expression that you didn’t hear all that was said. They don’t wait for you to apologize or “phase out” of a difficult-to-hear conversation. They make sure that you never feel ashamed because of your disability.

Each day is a series of plans: how to seat yourself and others so that you have the best hearing advantage, where to go for business meetings and social events to avoid loud, busy places, etc. However, sometimes it is difficult to control the situation.

Envision going to the theater or movies only to find the audience laughing with delight when you have no idea why. Maybe you smile or chuckle to camouflage your discomfort, hoping that this will not recur throughout the movie. These facilities usually offer headsets, which enable you to amplify the volume. Unfortunately, many are not well maintained and cause a static-like sound. It is always a pleasure  —  and a surprise — when we can enjoy a movie without struggling.

We sometimes avoid talking on the phone, knowing that we may need you to repeat yourself several times. You can understand why some of us choose to communicate by email or text!

We arrive at speaker functions and seminars at least 30 minutes early, so that we can get a much needed front-row seat.

Even in the health club, we wear our hearing aids to help follow the class routines. We certainly don’t want to be caught doing push-ups when the rest of the group is doing sit-ups.

In spite of our disability, many of us continue to be social and take part in group activities. There is always the fear of asking a question that has already been asked and answered. We understand that you may find it funny, but please know that it is mortifying to us.

On occasion, we may try to monopolize the conversation in order to control what is being said. Even with all the accommodations we give ourselves, all too often we mix up or miss words. We go home feeling embarrassed and wonder why we subject ourselves to group functions.

This is not meant to be a sad commentary. Please do not pity us and certainly don’t avoid us. We are very functional and grateful for the hearing ability we still have. We simply need “a little help from our friends.”

By Terri Goldstein, reprinted with the author’s permission from Los Angeles Times. January 9, 2012

Goldstein is a retired educator who is now a collage artist in Newport Coast. She can be reached at Tgold222@aol.com.

• Music videos in ASL (American Sign Language)
• A couple of rare videos with Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan
• Instructional videos teaching you basic ASL
• How to Reverse Dementia and Memory Loss
• Americans with Disabilities Act
• Age-Related Macular Degeneration
• 10 Questions for Stephen Hawking
• The Man with a 30-Second Memory
• CapTel Telephone, SmartView Pocket Magnifier, and other items for special needs
• Help For Those With Low Vision
• How To Set a Talking Watch (coming soon)

What does the FedEx ‘box tossing’ have to do with my business? Well, I could just pretend that I have nothing to do with FedEx (I use UPS for most of my shipping needs) and this would be the end of the story. But the very next day, as I glanced over Yahoo News, I remember reading something about a UPS driver’s mishandling of some sort. As I was busy fulfilling my customers’ orders, I didn’t pay much attention, but the names FedEx and UPS stuck to my mind.

In this day and age of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, stories like these have the potential of going viral and becoming a sore spot for the companies involved. Sure enough, Christmas is not even over, and another news story pops up, this time broadcast by Reuters. It reads, U.S. Shoppers less than merry after online glitches. Ooops, now they are talking about e-commerce and, as an online merchant, I must listen carefully because they could be talking about me.

What struck me most when reading this news story is how shoppers are likely not to forget a company that ruined their Christmas shopping experience. In the words of Patty Edwards, “People have a long memory. And when a retailer ruins Christmas by not delivering little Jimmy’s present on time, they’ve placed themselves on the permanent ‘naughty’ list.” What does this have to do with my business? Everything. And if you are an online retailer, it better have to do with yours too!

No matter how much attention I pay to my Christmas orders and how much I try to avoid last-minute “glitches”, it seems like there always will be some unhappy camper, someone who was not informed of a back-ordered or discontinued item until it’s too late. At a time when a big chunk of Amazon orders are fulfilled by third party companies, this becomes a serious issue indeed. Such is the predicament when we merchants have to rely on suppliers/carriers to get our orders shipped/delivered.

So the question is, how do we avoid those glitches or minimize their unintended consequences? To me, the answer is simple. We never lose sight of the customer in the first place, and we always put ourselves in their shoes. When we make a mistake, we don’t simply take a defensive approach and try to justify. We use more than just empty cliches such as “I understand your frustration blah blah blah…” To quote someone, “we make amends for our shortcomings”. Most customers will appreciate an additional discount or free shipping for a next-day order that was not delivered until 2-3 days later!

Besides apologizing and making amends, we take proactive steps to keep the problems from reoccurring. We train our employees to become more Customer Service oriented and to understand how an apparently harmless data entry error, for example, may have a long-lasting impact on the consumer and by default on our business and the industry as a whole.

The numbers are staggering, as reported by Reuters: “Only six of the 25 largest U.S. Retailers received top marks for online customer service, including website performance, between this year’s November 25 Black Friday and the following Cyber Monday, according to STELLAService.”

I wonder how much explaining FedEx had to do about their employees’ apparent misconduct. The question remains, what does that poor box have to do with my business? The answer is: everything.
]]> http://assistechblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/25/what-does-fedex-box-tossing-have-to-do-with-my-business/feed/ 0 assistechblog http://assistechblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/memory-boosters/ http://assistechblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/memory-boosters/#comments Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:56:51 +0000 assistech http://assistechblog.wordpress.com/?p=305 ]]>

When I was a kid, I used to think that forgetfulness was a sign of senility and old age. As old age is inevitable and I’m getting older, I must confess I had to review my concepts. At age 51 I no longer think that forgetting something is necessarily a sign of old age. We all have times in our lives when we are extremely busy with so many responsibilities that it would be humanly impossible to remember every single thing! Certain drugs may also hinder our memory capabilities. And the infamous lack of focus or lack of concentration is another culprit.

Speaking for myself, I can’t tell you how many times I had to turn around and drive back to make sure the garage door was shut behind me. Today, I’d like to talk about technologies that are available for people with memory loss and “people” here includes just about anybody.

Ooops! What was I gonna say? Let me think for a moment. Oh, yes! Besides gingko biloba which is normally prescribed as a great memory enhancer, there are several gadgets on the market to help us stay on top of our daily medications, commitments and responsibilities:

Vibrating watches with one, two, three, six, eight and even twelve daily alarms make great medicine reminders and more so if you have hearing loss. They usually give you the option to be alerted to sound, vibration or both. We carry the complete line of vibrating watches by Global Assistive.

The Cadex medication reminder watch has 12 daily alarms will beep and display the name of the medication to be taken (or any activity that you want to be reminded of). A snooze feature allows you to continue to be reminded every three minutes until you have taken your meds.

Four-alarm talking watches may also prove to be very effective when it comes to remembering your commitments and/or daily medicines. They are even more helpful if you are legally blind or have a visual impairment. They announce the time, date, and the elapsed time when using the stopwatch.

Pill boxes provide a simple and easy solution to the eternal problem of forgetting those pills. They have little compartments to store your medication and will let you know when it’s time to take your medication. Check out the Reizen pill box, the Apex pill organizer and the MedCenter Your Minder, which lets you record your own voice and use it as a personal alarm or reminder!

Talking Labels – A simple and effective solution to provide audible guidance in identifying and taking medications. Talking labels attach to standard packaging and allow you to record and store a voice message, which can then be played back at any time with the push of a button.

Lifetime Voice Calendar Talking Organizer – Record important dates and appointments in your own voice. When the day of the appointment comes, a red light flashes to alert you of that day’s message(s). Touch the button and you will hear the reminders and appointments that you had pre-recorded read back to you.

HD40P Photo Phone – Insert up to 9 pictures of people you call the most and call them with the simple press of a button! With optional voice amplification, it is also recommended for people with mild hearing loss.

The FotoDialer is an accessory to any analog telephone where the user makes calls by pressing a photo. There are six pages with four slots per page, for a total of 24 programmable numbers. When the user wants to make a call, he/she pushes the button next to the photo of the person or place he/she wants to call.

Fore more information on this topic, please visit our website.
]]> http://assistechblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/memory-boosters/feed/ 0 assistechblog a forgetful patient (cartoon) http://assistechblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/advice-for-preventing-hearing-loss/ http://assistechblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/advice-for-preventing-hearing-loss/#comments Thu, 15 Dec 2011 23:58:27 +0000 assistech http://assistechblog.wordpress.com/?p=296 ]]>

In this video Pat Mason, Director of Audiology at ASHA, gives some practical tips on how to prevent hearing loss.

Every once in a while customers ask me if I sell a device that would convert their speech into text so they can communicate with their deaf friends and family members. Unfortunately, voice recognition technology is not at a point where it automatically recognizes a person’s voice with 100% accuracy. There are computer applications on the market (such as Dragon Naturally Speaking) that do speech-to-text conversion; however, they require a considerable amount of voice training. From what I understand, certain variables make it hard to transcribe the human voice with accuracy, such as language accents, noise level, and loudness of one’s speech. In more constrained settings where speech is more predictable, voice recognition technology seems to fare a lot better. If you heard one of these automated voice response systems that sound like you’re talking to a live person, you know exactly what I mean.

Fortunately, when it comes to telephone communication, we seem to be a step further. TTY technology has been on the market for several decades now. It allows a deaf or speech-impaired person to type on a standard TTY keyboard and read the other party’s responses on an LCD screen. If the hearing person does not have a TTY, he or she can go through the Relay Service (by dialing 711 in the USA). Through Voice Carry Over (or VCO for short), a Call Assistant relays the speech to the deaf person by typing what’s being said. If the person is speech impaired instead, he or she will type on their TTY keyboard. The Call Assistant reads what’s being typed to the other party, who responds verbally and directly to the TTY user. This type of call is referred to as Hearing Carry Over (or HCO).  Both services–VCO and HCO–are free and confidential; the caller only pays for the long-distance toll charges. Please check our website for a complete listing of TTY phones.

In the days of its inception into the market, TTY was considered a revolutionary technology that made it possible for deaf people to communicate using a regular telephone line. Well, things have changed. TTY is now considered old-fashioned by some and it’s gradually being replaced with newer technologies such as smartphone text messaging and captioned telephones. Text messaging and smartphones are pretty much straightforward so I won’t address them here. Captioned telephones are relatively new and unknown to many people.

A caption telephone displays captions of the phone conversation on a large, easy-to-ready screen. The user of the caption phone reads the message and talks back to the caller. Compared to TTY, call captioning technology presents some advantages. For one thing, the deaf person can direct dial from their caption phone without a need to go through Voice Relay. The call automatically routes to a captioning center that transcribes their voice using voice recognition technology. Now you ask me, “How is this possible if voice recognition is not 100% accurate?” Here’s the catch: A captioning professional who’s been trained for the job acts on the background by voicing what they hear. A more advanced type of voice recognition “hears” the voice and converts it into text. A clear advantage of call captioning is that there are hardly any delays in the phone interactions. Plus, the phone costs considerably less than a TTY.

At Assistech we provide cutting-edge technologies for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. We currently offer two captioned telephones, the CapTel 800i and the CaptionCall. They both require a standard phone line and a high-speed Internet connection. For more details please follow these links:

• Tell me more about CapTel 800i
• Tell me more about CaptionCall

Check out this video to see how telephone captioning works and to hear what some users have to say.

Welcome to the Assistech Blog.
I’m excited to embark in this new adventure that is the world of blogging. My name is Oliver Simões and I’ve been serving the Deaf and the Blind communities for over 10 years through my online/retail business. We provide assistive technologies for special needs, mostly for those with hearing and/or visual loss.  A lot has changed in cyber space ever since Arizona Hearing Online was founded in March of 2000. Electronic newsletters (the so-called “e-zines”) were very popular back then. Now Facebook, Twitter and other social networks are in the order of the day. Blogs have multiplied by the thousands, if not by the millions (Thank you, WordPress), and Arizona Hearing Online is no more.

When we first started, we only catered to the deaf and the hard of hearing. As our business grew, it got to a point where we realized our company name no longer reflected what we were doing. That’s how ASSISTECH came about. We are based in Tucson, Arizona and we have served thousands of people across the US and in several other parts of the world.

Now, the time has come to take another step. As I sat down to write this post, I had no idea where this was going to take me. But I think this is the beauty about blogging. There is always a surprise element involved. For one thing, you don’t know whether people will take an interest in what you write, and if they do, you still don’t know how they are going to respond. I guess in order to be a good blogger one cannot be afraid of making a fool of him or herself. My goals in blogging are twofold:

First, I’d like to establish a closer connection with my customer base here in the US and overseas. One of the greatest joys for me is when I feel I have made a difference in someone’s life. A few days ago, a lady who was severely hard of hearing came to my office to return a defective phone. I told her our normal procedure is to send the phone back to the manufacturer for repair (since this was a warranty issue). As our conversation got more informal, she went on to tell me the troubles she was facing for not having a reliable phone that she could use to call her friends and family. She was wheelchair-bound and her eyesight was also getting worse, and there was nobody around to help her out. When she needs to buy groceries, she hails a taxicab to the grocery store and tips the driver $10 or $15 dollars to help her carry them. When I gave this lady a brand-new phone in exchange for her old one, her eyes beamed and she had a broad smile on her face. She was visibly touched by my gesture: tears rolled down her eyes. And she was SO thankful. This experience left a deep impression on me as well, as I realized that whatever we do or fail to do can have an impact on other people’s lives.

My second goal in blogging is to try to establish a network of people interested in learning more about technologies that are available for special needs. When I started in 2000, I was clueless. Having taught languages for several years, I had a very basic knowledge about assistive technologies. But I had a strong desire to learn so that I could help others. Like any other student, I made mistakes along the way. Some of them were inconsequential, others were either funny or disastrous, depending on how you look at them. For example, it took me a couple of months to realize that the talking watches I had advertised online to my deaf customers were no good to them.  In another instance, I ordered 300 talking calculators from a supplier in China, and I still have them in stock to this day!

But, fortunately, I can safely say that I can count more successes than failures, and I’ve always tried to look on the bright side of things, even when they didn’t look so bright. Life is such an incredible adventure. It feels good to be alive. It feels good to blog.