Understanding assistive listening

This course is presented to you by Bo Edin AB. My name is Thomas Plahn and I am the

company sales director. We develop assistive listening products under the brand name Univox.

We are mainly known for our hearing loop systems. This is our first mass-produced hearing loop

amplifier that we launched in 1965. This is the actual first order dated May 13th, 1965 for 100

units for the Swedish National Health Services central purchasing agency. Today, Univox

products are used throughout the world.

The aim of this course is to give you a basic understanding of how common hearing deficiency is

and what it means to be hard of hearing. We’ll cover the basic function of a hearing aid. We

cannot maybe entirely understand what it means to be hard of hearing but hopefully we can get

an understanding of what the challenges are for a hard of hearing person. We touch on what

different assistive listening technologies are available for public use and also talk about

accessibility legislation.

The reason for providing this course is to give you a better basic understanding on why assistive

listening systems are used and needed and who benefits from them. This on its own is a good

thing but it will also prepare you for future courses from Univox. Understanding why, is usually a

good idea before proceeding with how.

In this lecture we will look at how common hearing deficiency and the use of hearing instruments (hearing aids) is.

In this lecture you will learn about what hearing loss is about.