Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Impaired hearing and cohousing

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

>  One problem that engineers haven't been able to solve (within a price
> range that most people can afford) is that people who use hearing aids
> usually can't hear speech in the presence of background noise. In the
> context of cohousing, this means a hearing-impaired person would have
> a hard time at meetings if there is second-hand noise from the room
> where the kids are, even if everyone else can hear just fine over this
> noise.

This is typical of aging  hearing. Our 83 year old member often cannot 
hear anything. He reads the flip charts. Good acoustics help because 
they lower the level of background noise. Acoustical panels stop the 
reverberations and make sounds clearer.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org
On May 13, 2004, at 1:17 PM, Bob Morrison wrote: