Lines of Communication

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Feb 11, 2021
4 min

Valentines to My Friends in Hearing Access

Sound Advice by Ruth D. Bernstein Ruth Bernstein, Hearing Access Advocate I have a long list of Valentines to distribute this year, all of them related to my hearing loss and new Covid-19 lifestyle. I will remember 2020 as the year when I, along with the rest of the world, learned how to communicate in various ways we had seldom used before. It is also the year I became a great-grandmother for the first time, and Isaac and Nicole, my grandson and new granddaughter, married. V

Nov 17, 2020
4 min

Google Accessibility Apps for People with Hearing Loss

CHC Partners with Google Accessibility Team Center for Hearing and Communication, we embrace a vision of communication without limits for all people with hearing loss. Since technology is central to the expansion of communication access, we are dedicated to keeping you informed of any and all tech innovations we think can help you hear and stay connected to the world around you. Toward that end, we’re excited to announce our partnership with the Google Accessibility team. Goo

Nov 17, 2020
4 min

Celebrating My One-Year Anniversary with a Cochlear Implant

I’m Still Hear: My Cochlear Implant Journey, Part 3 By Ruth Bernstein My life changed a lot after I became bionic. Before my CI, my hearing aids did not go on until I was ready to leave the house and came off, along with my shoes, when I walked in the door. I was physically exhausted at the end of every day because my brain was burning so much extra energy trying to understand what it was hearing. Now, I put my CI and hearing aid on when I wake up and take them off when I’m r

Nov 16, 2020
6 min

Making Virtual Gatherings Hearing-Friendly This Holiday Season

Tips for Better Hearing and Communication with Hearing Loss By Carolyn Stern, Asst. Director of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives For a summary of holiday communication tips click the link above. Otherwise read on for the complete post. The pandemic will prevent many of us from keeping our traditional ways of celebrating this holiday season with friends and family. While this is certainly sad, there is an opportunity for staying connected virtually – with the right technolog

Oct 2, 2020
5 min

Guide for optimizing healthcare visits with hearing loss

By Nancy J. Rennert, MD and Carolyn Stern, MBA Life this past year has certainly been different – and healthcare is different, too. With the Covid- 19 pandemic, our lives changed. Access to health care was restricted and people with hearing loss faced additional communication barriers due to the use of face masks and policies limiting in-person interpreters. With vaccines and declining infection rates, recommendations recently changed to allow certain groups of people to go w

Sep 17, 2020
3 min

Hearing well in health care visits is a new challenge

Carolyn Stern, Asst. Director of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives By Carolyn Stern, MBA Assistant Director of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives As my routine health care appointments were cancelled a few months ago due to the Covid-19 shutdown, initially, it felt like a fun break from always being “so responsible” for keeping myself healthy. At the same, I felt uneasy because it’s been ingrained to never miss important preventative visits and screenings. While staying safe

Aug 6, 2020
2 min

Videoconference captioning news from InnoCaption

By Carolyn Stern, MBA Assistant Director of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives Carolyn Stern, Asst. Dir. of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives In a prior blog post, Zoom and Captioning with InnoCaption+ App, I shared how to make your Zoom calls accessible by viewing captions provided by the free InnoCaption+ app on your smartphone. In that post, I highlighted a nice feature that the user can choose to generate captions by a human captioner (like CART) or by an automatic speec

Jul 21, 2020
2 min

Medical community identifies need for greater communication access for people with hearing loss

JAMA: Overcoming boundaries to care Ellen Lafargue, AuD, CCC-A We want everyone to be aware of an important article just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Otolaryngology: Overcoming Additional Barriers to Care for Deaf, Hard of Hearing Patients During COVID-19. This terrific piece alerts the medical community to the many communication barriers that deaf and hard of hearing people face when receiving medical care in a time when COVID-19 requires the

May 22, 2020
5 min

Videoconference captioning possible for hearing loss with accessory for musicians

By Carolyn Stern, MBA Assistant Director of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives Carolyn Stern, Asst. Dir. of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives I am excited to share a new set up using a unique accessory popular among musicians that has dramatically improved my ability to work and socialize while videoconferencing with a hearing loss. As mentioned in prior posts, I have two cochlear implants and hear better on video calls when the audio is streamed wirelessly to my hearing dev

Apr 23, 2020
2 min

Hear and Connect: Y-Splitters and Hearing Loss

By Carolyn Stern Assistant Director of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives Carolyn Stern, Asst. Dir. of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives A good accessory to have is a headphone splitter cable (also known as a Y-splitter or Y-cord), particularly if you have a hearing loss. This accessory allows two different audio playback devices to plug into a single headphone jack on the computer. For example, I used a Y-splitter on a recent plane trip so that my daughter and I could plug

Apr 16, 2020
4 min

Zoom and Captioning with InnoCaption+ App

By Carolyn Stern Assistant Director of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives Carolyn Stern, Asst. Dir. of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives Did know you can use the InnoCaption+ app to make your Zoom calls accessible? As a loyal user of InnoCaption+ since it launched a few years back, I was thrilled to learn of this option. For those of you who don’t know, InnoCaption+ makes mobile phone calls accessible by displaying on the phone’s screen live captions of the caller’s voice ge

Apr 9, 2020
3 min

Hear and Connect: Tips for Better Hearing While Remote Learning

By Anita Stein-Meyers, AuD, CCC-A Asst. Director, CHC’s Shelley and Steven Einhorn Audiology Center Anita Stein-Meyers, AuD, CCC-A During this time of transition from in-school learning to at-home learning via technology, some students who make use of hearing aids or cochlear implants may find it challenging to hear their teachers and classmates. While computer or tablet speakers can be the simplest way to hear hands-free and with both ears, this may not offer sufficient volu

Apr 2, 2020
3 min

Hear and Connect: Tips for Making Videoconferencing More Hearing Loss Friendly

By Carolyn Stern Assistant Director of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives Carolyn Stern, Asst. Dir. of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives Conducting work and social life through video conferencing is a big adjustment for everyone in this new environment. This is especially difficult for people with hearing loss who typically prefer or are better able to communicate close up and in person. Ensuring a good visual of each participant, strong quality audio, respectful communicati

Apr 1, 2020
4 min

Hear and Connect: Zoom and Captioning for Hearing Loss

By Carolyn Stern Assistant Director of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives While Zoom is probably the most popular videoconferencing platform, currently it does not provide automatic captioning of live Zoom meetings. Anecdotally, testing of an integrated automatic captioning feature is underway, but a release date is not known at this point. Until it is made available, here are some options for captioning your Zoom sessions. 3 Ways to Caption a Zoom Meeting #1. Hire a Remote L

Apr 1, 2020
4 min

Tips for improving audio quality on videoconferences

By Audiologist Jane Auriemmo Jane Auriemmo, AuD, CCC-A, Senior Audiologist Hi, my name is Dr. Jane Auriemmo and I am a member of CHC’s audiology team. Today, we want to offer some tips from our audiology team for improving the audio quality of video conferencing calls as many organizations shift their meetings, events and training to virtual platforms. Please note there isn’t often a “one size fits all” solution. Each person’s hearing ability, technology and hearing devices v

Feb 12, 2020
2 min

Discover a world of assistive listening technology

Free weekly group devices demo Terrence Williams, Asst. Dir, CHC’s Berelson Hearing Technology Center Do you struggle to hear when you talk on the phone? Does your hearing loss make it difficult to participate in meetings and social gatherings? Are you concerned about the safety of a loved one? You’ll be happy to know there’s a world of assistive devices and apps at your disposal— marvels of technology that can enhance hearing and communication, keep a loved one safe and pro

Nov 7, 2019
5 min

Feast honoree, Google, puts empathy at forefront of accessible and inclusive design

Google shares views on accessibility in Q&A All of us at the Center for Hearing and Communication (CHC) were thrilled to host our signature fundraising event, the Feast, at Pier Sixty, Chelsea Piers Monday, November 4th. Conceived as a celebration of The Power of Communication, this year’s Feast honored Google with the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award for its dedication to ensuring that people with disabilities are not left out in accessing the world’s information. The oc

Jul 8, 2019
5 min

Effective ways to hear better with tech

Hearing aids, captioning apps + other solutions Carolyn Stern, Manager, Center for Hearing and Communication Are you or someone you know saying “what?” too often or finding it difficult to keep up with a group conversation? It’s possible you may be experiencing a gradual decline in hearing, just like a third of all older adults. It happens slowly but eventually declines to a point where the hearing loss interferes with everyday interactions and favorite pastimes such as socia

Feb 12, 2019
2 min

A joyous hearing challenge

Editor’s Note: We’re delighted to share the news that Ruth Bernstein will be honored with the Spirit of HLAA Award June 22nd at the 2019 HLAA Convention in Rochester. Congratulations, Ruth, on this well-deserved honor. Sound Advice by Ruth D. Bernstein I had not been to the Russian Tea Room in more than forty years and wasn’t aware it had become a wedding venue. When I Googled it, I saw four floors of relatively narrow, elegant rooms, one block in depth, from 57th to 56th Str

Dec 14, 2018
3 min

Hearing access advocacy: the gift that keeps on giving

Sound Advice by Ruth D. Bernstein Why your voice matters In Speak Up Please (4/27/18), I deal with the need for all of us to request hearing access because the world doesn’t understand how many people need it. I was told by the Director of Subscriber Relations at the NY Philharmonic I was the only one who asked for access at an event introducing the new Musical Director Van Jaap. When my grandson and I walked into the hall, it was obvious more than half the audience was over