This work focuses on the development of a hearing aid with a tactile display of high frequency speech energy. The combined aid will incorporate an FM receiver and is aimed at severely to profoundly deaf people with significant low frequency hearing, but with little or no access to high frequency speech cues. The initial phase will establish a data base of the spectral characteristics of the high frequency consonants produced by a representative sample of adult and child male and female speakers. This information will then be used to design a system to present the high frequency consonants via the tactile domain. This will be achieved via an array of vibrators allowing the user to accurately detect and differentiate between the set of high frequency consonants. The proposed work includes the laboratory evaluation of prototype arrays to determine which one allows the best performance by a panel of deaf subjects. An aid will then be built combining the Telex TDR 40 system for the auditory/FM signal and our own tactile display. Two deaf subjects will then be trained and tested using the experimental system. In Phase Il a commercial aid will be designed and extensive training procedures developed.
If this work is successful it will result in a combined hearing aid!tactile aid with a built in FM receiver. This type of device would allow severely and profoundly deaf subjects access to the range of high frequency consonants. An all-in-one device would greatly reduce the amount of equipment needed to achieve this aim.
