Does your business offer a Hearing Access Solution?

14 Aug 09

Does your business offer a Hearing Access Solution?

The issue of hearing loss affects over 15% of the population and it's on the increase. It can often be traumatic with a feeling of being disconnected from the world.

Hearing accessibility is increasingly part of general equal access regulation and is also required by legislation in areas including the Discrimination Act, the Building Code of Australia and the Australian Standard AS1428 - Designing for Access and Mobility.

Hearing augmentation must be provided wherever there is inbuilt amplification in:

  • Any conference, meeting or similar room >100m2
  • Any room used for judicatory purposes
  • Auditorium in a class 9b building - equitable >15% of seating (this will increase to 85% in the coming years)
  • Ticket offices, tellers booths, reception areas where public is screened from service provider

So how are businesses providing assistance?

Assistive hearing systems like an Induction Loop, are an ideal solution for organisations to increase the value of your services and ensure you are meeting legislative requirements.

With an Induction Loop, an audio input is required to connect to a loop amplifier, which in turn drives current into a conductive loop. The loop then creates a magnetic field which converts to audio in the hearing aid when near or within the loop. The audio is amplified for the person wearing the hearing aid, giving them equal access to entertainment and communications that may otherwise been denied.

The advantages of this type of system are many. It does not require the venue operator to provide receivers since each patron utilises their own hearing aid. This means no there is no management of receivers or administration. It is discrete so avoids discrimination of the hard-of-hearing and it allows equal access. Additional benefits of a loop system are that it utilises internal tonal correction of each hearing aid, hygiene problems are reduced, it is not restricted to line-of-sight and there are no licensing issues.  

More details on The Induction Loop .

For expert advice and a free consultation, email the InSight System team, or call us on 1300 369 451.