Assistive Listening

This week, strategies for accommodating exhibition visitors with hearing loss. (Overview.) Note: this is just a sampler. The actual laws are complex.

For those who hear, but not well, legally we must assist them to hear our audio better. In exhibition theaters, one approach is “assistive listening” systems.

(For visitors who can’t hear, we must offer audio content in visual form, such as captioning. More tomorrow.)

Assistive listening is required anywhere visitors gather to experience content over time, like a theater. These systems, which we must offer those who ask, include FM radio personal devices, infrared devices, and induction loop technology.

Most hearing aids and cochlear implants have a telecoil inside: a little wire coil users activate by switching to their “T” channel. It receives sound from a thin wire that runs in a big loop around a whole room. That can be a big theater, or a little nook. Unlike FM and infrared, the law requires at least a certain percentage of visitors to be accommodated by induction loop.

Here’s the thing:
Assistive listening gives us some really innovative ways to help visitors hear our content better. (And gives us complex laws, so keep learning.)

Warmly,
Jonathan

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MtM Word of the Day:
ADA. The Americans with Disabilities Act, a 1990 US civil rights law that protects people with disabilities from discrimination in public spaces. This includes requirements like ramps in addition to steps, captioning of audio-visuals for the hearing impaired, and braille on signage, among others. Many countries have equivalent legislation.