About 11 years ago Ellen Ashton-Haiste wrote an article for your magazine about dealing with deafness. I live in Summerland, but was visiting my daughter in London, Ont. and Ellen interviewed my daughter. It is so nice to see that Ellen is still writing for you.
Here we are many years later and I am still struggling with my hearing loss. Ellen's latest article (April edition) was very informative, but I was very disappointed that she didn't mention my absolute favourite method of hearing enhancement which is "closed captioning." If you can see it you can hear it.
If I have the TV on with my hearing aids in and the closed-captioning feature turned on, I don't miss anything. The aids and TV sound give me the background music and ambiance and the closed captioning makes sure I don't miss any of the words. The new-fangled items that Ellen talks about that send the sound directly to the inner ear still don't give me the clarity to understand the words.
The phone for me is still very frustrating. I am looking for the one that you see on the TV show FB Eye. It is a telephone that displays what the caller is saying and the recipient of the call can immediately respond with the phone. The hunt is on.
I am a member of the Quest Society for Hearing Enhancement in Summerland and one of our special projects this year is our Closed Caption Awareness Project. There is a new theatre planned for Penticton and our first major goal is to try and convince them to make it closed captioned. The excuse is usually that the ones who can hear find it distracting. Funny thing is that if there are subtitles for a different language, they don't complain about that.
It was such a treat to see that the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics in Vancouver had two big screens that immediately transcribed what each speaker was saying and they also had a person signing live on the screen.
Keep up the good work with your magazine. It is so informative.
Sharon Stone
Summerland, BC
