Hearing Aid Choices
What are assistive devices for young children?
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As parents look to the future, one big goal is for their child to be independent. Parents help their children learn to do many things by themselves, such as dressing, brushing their teeth and crossing the street. Becoming independent in communication is also important. Assistive devices help people with hearing loss be more independent in many situations.

Telephone Devices
Talking on the telephone is a big step for children. Even with well-fit hearing aids, some children with hearing loss need extra help to use the phone. Telephone amplifiers can provide a louder sound to the hearing aid or send a signal that works with a special hearing aid setting. Some amplifiers are loud enough to use without a hearing aid.

For children with more severe hearing losses, listening and understanding voices on the telephone may be too difficult. The use of a TTY (telephone typewriter) or wireless messaging system allows communication with typed messages. As children learn to read and write, a TTY or wireless message system can bring independence when communicating with family and friends. Text messaging on a cell phone can also be used. A camera connected to a computer can send video messages to another computer or possibly a cell phone. Instead of a text message, video communication can use sign language or lip-reading with audio signals.

TV Devices
As young children become more interested in TV, the best option for listening is a personal listening system. These systems allow a child to listen to the TV at a comfortable listening level without disturbing others in the room. The best systems use FM or infrared signals to send the sound directly from the TV to a headset or the child's hearing aids. The advantage to these systems is that they are wireless and allow freedom to move around. As children learn to read, TV closed captioning gives extra information.

Alerting Devices
Alerting systems help a child be aware of important events that happen in the home such as doorbells ringing or knocks at the door, telephones ringing, smoke and fire alarms and alarm clocks. Some children may not be able to hear important warning signals, even when they are using hearing aids. It also is important to alert children to some alarms at times when they are not wearing their aids. When older children start to stay home alone or watch younger siblings independently, they need an awareness of the phone, the door and smoke/fire alarms. Alerting devices use amplified sounds, visual signals such as flashing lights or vibration. The method that works best to alert to different sounds may vary from child to child and from situation to situation. It is important to experiment with different options to see what works best for your child.

The following links are examples of websites where a variety of assistive devices can be compared and purchased:

www.harcmercantile.com
www.hearingsolutions.net
www.harriscomm.com
www.hearmore.com