Research team from Lamar University, Texas looking into digital self-help for hearing impaired

The project is funded by Lamar University’s Center for Innovation, Commercialization, and Entrepreneurship (CICE).

According to the University’s News Archive, the team includes faculty, graduate and undergraduate researchers, all working on the project called Virtual Reality: Management of Adults with Hearing Loss.

“This project gives both graduate and undergraduate students the opportunity to participate in the research process and discover how it applies to the speech and hearing sciences,” explains Monica Bellon-Harn from the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences. “Along with a team of researchers, students helped develop content for an Internet-based instructional program for adults with hearing loss. It is akin to a self-help book, but online and easily accessible,” she adds.

The project involves determining the specific needs of adults with hearing loss, developing the necessary materials to address them, and arranging the materials into an effective digital learning format. One of the reasons motivating this approach is that websites are often written at a very high reading level, say the researchers, or contain limited or unreliable health information.

Other parts of the work carried out include learning how hearing loss and hearing aids are represented in the media in the United States, understanding the communication and social behavior of adults with hearing loss, and testing internet-based hearing rehabilitation materials with people who have hearing loss.

Source: Lamar University