 audiology and is a well-experienced educational audiologist in the mainstream and congregated settings. Her area of expertise and passion goes beyond assistive hearing technologies. She encompasses all sorts of technology related to apps, implants, advocacy, and effective strategies for coping with hearing loss. As a late deafened adult with cochlear implants, as well as fluent in ASL, her unique perspective and career of her career and personal experience is shared with families, adults, and other professionals. I was very pleased to meet Tina at the EAA conference in St. Petersburg, Florida, and I was in awe of her knowledge and enthusiasm, plus she's a lot of fun. So I hope you enjoy this one hour, and thanks for joining us. Good afternoon everybody. Let me just make sure that everybody can hear me. Everything is good. Okay, so I see that the captioning is working, and I see that the interpreter is able to follow me. So let me do a little bit of housekeeping. So the interpreter looks like she's blocking a little bit, the upper right-hand corner of the slide, and I see the captioning is going along the bottom of the slide. So if I feel that something is covered, I'll try to explain what those pictures or those graphics are. I believe that you will also be receiving a PDF of this presentation, so that if there are any links that are on here, that you can click on the links, and it should take you straight to the website. So with that, let's go ahead and go to the next slide. So as Jackie mentioned, I am an educational audiologist. You know, one of my nicknames is Tikitina. I feel like I look around my home office right now, and I think I have about every piece of assistive technology that's out there. I love to try things. I love to, you know, teach people about these things, because I know as audiologists that sometimes there are things out there that we don't know about that actually the consumer knows about, and so as a consumer, I love also teaching people about what, you know, what we're using every day. So the second are probably the last third of this presentation. I will also be talking about apps. I know that that could be a whole other webinar in and of itself, but I'm going to give you a brief overview of a bunch of different things. I love to advocate my passion, and Crystal Yuskal can attest to this. She knows that I have a passion for live theater, so anytime I can advocate for access, I will do that. And so I love to use my connections on both sides as a professional and as a consumer. So we're going to go ahead and go on to the next slide. And so I don't know what it is about audiologists, but they seem to like alphabet soup. So just so you know that if you're reading in kind of more current literature, if you see the acronym ALD, which used to be assistive listening devices, I'm going to refer to it as HAT, which stands for hearing assistive slash assistance technology. What we used to call sound field systems, we now call them CADS, classroom audio distribution systems. And then what pertains to many of you, what we used to call FM systems, I will now call RM HAT, which stands for remote microphone hearing assistive assistance technology. So I'm trying to speak slowly for the interpreters and for the captioners. And that's just something I think that they came about because we're not, you know, transmitting anymore only through FM. You know, we now have things like Roger, which is technically DM, which stands for digital modulation. We have things like Bluetooth. And just don't call things fun again anymore. That's not what people use so much. So going forward, these are the types of acronyms and terminology that I'm going to use. And I, okay, sorry, I saw the captioning go out and I wasn't sure what happened. Next slide. So there are basically three different ways that we can connect. So the first way is what I would call via an acoustic transmission, meaning that, you know, what you want to listen to is going to send a sound travel through the air, and we'll hit the amplification that the person is wearing. The second way is what I'm going to categorize as wireless. And that's probably the most complicated. But it's also what we're seeing the most right now in the schools and amongst my adult peers. And the third way is what I'm calling direct audio input. And that involves a physical cable going from what you want to listen to, to your amplification. So next slide. So I tried to portray this graphically. I can tell I do a lot of presentations because I tend to think in PowerPoint. So on the left, you're going to see that that's what I'm going to call like my sound source. So your phone, your tablet, the microphone, like a teacher microphone, and then go ahead and click. And you should see an arrow go up on the right, you're going to see the amplification. You can have hearing aids, cochlear implants and that oval is meant to denote like a bone anchored hearing system. So that is just amplification in general. So then if you click again, so this is number one, we're talking and we're talking about an acoustic signal. So it goes from the I'm not sure which way it'll go from the sound source to the amplification. Okay, next slide. Now this slide, I think is important because many, many times I've gone into a classroom, and the student is wearing headphones, and the head, oh, I'm seeing your internet connection is unstable. Okay, so I, the kid is wearing headphones. But they're complaining that they can't hear. Well, that's because their headphones might actually need to be up here. So please click, and you should see some red dots. Keep going, it's going to click through each of the different processors. And what those red dots show is where the environmental microphone is on the amplification. So think about your students, think about which device that they have. For the most part, all hearing aids are going to have the environmental microphone on the top of their ear. If you have the all in line processors, like the Canso or the Rondo, of course, it's going to be on the head. The green one is the Neptune from Advanced Bionics. And that the headpiece actually houses the microphone as well. Now the exception of this would be the Harmony processor, or the Nayida N-A-I-D-A from Advanced Bionics, because they actually do have a microphone that sits at the level of the ear canal. So if I talk on the phone, I can hold it up here, I don't need to hold it up here. So use this page as a reference and think about your students and where their microphone placement is. Okay, next slide. So the next way we're going to talk about, go ahead and click again, and click one more time. What we're talking about now is direct audio input. Okay, so I did skip from number one to number three, because number two is a little bit more complicated. So with direct audio input, you're going to have a physical cable from the sound source to the amplification. So go ahead and click. Next slide. Thank you. And so for hearing aid users, this is accomplished by using the audio shoe that you would use for an environmental microphone. I'm sorry, the audio shoe that you would use for RM hat. And so you will see that the three prom cable will plug into the bottom. And then the other end will plug into the headphone jack of what you want to listen to. So we have students that like to use this setup in their computer lab, because they like to know that they're going to have a pretty clear signal, they know they're not going to get interference. They don't need to listen to the teacher or anything like that. They just want to listen to the computer. Of course, they will be tethered to the computer at that point. So, you know, and investigate what works. It also works if you take the cable and plug in to the transmitter. But this is going directly from the sound source to the amplification. Now, the next slide talks about cochlear I'm sorry, the next bullet point talks about cochlear implant recipients. You the only thing you need to think about with that is that you need to be careful to mourn against any kind of power surges. So I recommend that if a student is going to be plugging into their cochlear implant directly, either two things need to happen. You need to have the cable that has a circuit breaker in it, or you should only plug into devices that are battery operated, meaning not plugged into the wall. So think of this scenario, you're sitting in a school, and you get some freak lightning strike that happens that lightning can travel through the building down the wall, through the outlet up the cable, you know, the power cord, and you don't want it to, you know, impact the student. In those situations, you can actually damage the processor, you could scramble a program. So you need to be very, very careful in those situations. Okay, next slide. So the next way that we're going to talk about, go ahead and click one more time is we are going to start talking about the wireless connections. So the first wireless connection has to do with using the telecoil setting or the T coil setting on their amplifications. Now, for those of you that have been around a while like me, I mean, I've been doing this now for about 20 years. I think telecoils have gotten a bad rep. And they are much, much better. And the assistive technology or the hearing assistive technology is a lot better than it used to be. So let's talk about some of those options. Next slide, please. So the first way is just turning on your telecoil setting in a situation where you don't, that's all you need, you don't need any kind of receiver. So there's different ways that you can activate the telecoil. Well, first of all, the audiologist usually has to program that onto the hearing aid or cochlear implant. You can either press a button on the processor or hearing aid or you might need to use a remote control or an app. The thing to remember too is that hopefully most pediatric audiologists will remember to have a mixing ratio where they can hear part through the telecoil and also part through the environmental microphone. So the way that I have my cochlear implant set up, I have one cochlear implant that is all telecoil. My second cochlear implant is part telecoil, but also part environmental mic. And the reason is, is if I had full telecoil on both processors, I would not be able to hear my voice. So if I'm using the telecoil to talk on the phone, I would be I wouldn't be able to hear my voice. So you want to have a little bit of environmental microphone as part of that. Okay. And so when you have the telecoil, it will give you access to things like mobile telephones. So what I would just do is I would, you know, switch to the telecoil on my cochlear implant. And I can hold the telephone up to my ear, or my mobile phone, or a landline phone and should be able to hear that signal directly. So if I held it to this ear, I would hear part telecoil and part environmental mic. If I held it to this ear, which is all telecoil, I would only hear the signal that comes from the telephone. And that is helpful in situations where there's a lot of background noise. Okay. So the next thing it'll provide access to would be to hearing assistive technology, which I'll describe a little bit more. Now, telecoils have different ways that they are placed in amplification. And I guess I should just say the thing that you need to worry about the most is if you have a student that has an N five, or an N six, the nucleus five or nucleus six, they may have a harder time hearing through in a looped room. Or if they are listening with a neck loop, like the my link receiver, or the Otacon arc. And that's because the orientation of the telecoil is not great for those two situations. So in the bottom right hand corner, and you can see a picture of their solution for that. It's called the room loop booster. And it's that straight thing that's going up and down. And you just plug that into the auxiliary porn on the back of an N five or N six. Okay. So just think about your students. And if they're complaining that they're not hearing from their neck loop, or they're not able to hear in a hearing loop kind of situation, it might be the orientation of their telecoil. So that middle picture shows a picture of a room. And in that room, you could see the blue line, which has, which is supposed to show where the physical wire is around the room. So if I went into that room, and it was telecoil compatible, that blue logo at the top should be showing that something is hearing compatible. So if I were to go into that room, all I would need to do is sit within the loop, switch to telecoil. And the speaker who has a microphone that might also go to, you know, the speakers in a room, some field speakers, I should be able to hear them directly into my amplification. So that's the beauty of telecoil is you don't need any kind of other receivers. Next slide. So I'm going to talk about another way. And this is what's really exciting right now. And this is using Bluetooth or FMDM that will go to what we call a streamer. So let me talk about that. So next slide, please. So you know, in a school setting, we see different kinds of transmitters. Popular right now are things like the Phonak touchscreen in the upper left hand corner. We have things like the Roger Pan. We have the Inspiro. We have the Amigo from Otacon, which is in the bottom left hand corner. And then the two little microphones, those are the little remote microphones that we're seeing more and more of, which I'll talk about in a minute. Okay, next slide. And then of course, we have the different receivers. So on the left, you see the different receiver styles that go to hearing aids. And on the right, you see the ones that go to cochlear implants. The one in the middle is the Phonak MyLink. And as long as you have a telecoil program that can go to either hearing aids or cochlear implants. On the hearing aid side, if you look in the middle row on the right, you see the Otacon streamer, and you see that there's a Roger X connected to it. So there's different configurations that you can use. Okay, next slide. So it gets a little bit confusing. So I made a chart. So if you have Phonak accessories, those typically will go with Phonak hearing aids or advanced Bionics cochlear implants. The next column, you have resound accessories that go with resound or cochlear. The next column is Otacon. And so those go with Otacon hearing aids or the Neuro cochlear implants, which I believe it's approved in Canada now. It is not yet being used in the US. It's not FDA approved. But I know that that's going to be a fourth cochlear implant company coming to the US. So just because you have these Phonak accessories, you'll want to check with the audiologist to make sure that things are still compatible. There are still some older processors or hearing aids that are floating around that they may not be compatible. So you'll want to check that compatibility. Next slide, please. The other thing, even within Phonak, it can be a little bit confusing. So I'm all about making charts and making resources that you guys can access later. So you can see the different products that Phonak makes and which ones are compatible with what. So if you look at, for example, the Roger only pediatric products, those are not compatible with the Roger only adult products. Okay, so the pediatrics will only go with the pediatrics and the adult products only go with the Roger or the adult products. So again, you'll want to check with the audiologist or your manufacturer to make sure that you have all the pieces that you need. Next slide. The other thing that's really exciting right now is we have things like made for iPhone hearing aids. They're not really recommending these for the young young students. However, we are seeing more high school age students starting to get some of these products. And having these made for iPhone hearing aids are pretty cool. You can directly listen to your phone, which can be a bad thing. In my family, we have a rule, no electronics at the table. Unfortunately, I now have to enforce this rule with my mom, because my mom just got hearing aids. And sometimes she doesn't turn off her iPad and she's listening to a baseball game or something. So I've had to get on her case a couple of times. So right now, the made for iPhone hearing aids are the most prevalent. However, Sinova, which is a company that owns Sponak, they are coming out with something called the big come out with something called the sword chip sw or D that will be compatible with Android or Apple devices. Right now, in the US, it's only available with one product, but I know that that will be expanding. Next line. So these streamer devices are what we're starting to see more and more of in the school. You see the first style, which is the neck loop style. And then the second style is what I call the clip style. So what we're seeing, at least what I'm seeing amongst educational audiologists is that we're having lots of discussions about students that only want to use their their clip style microphone, you know, which would be like the mini mic to which we're seeing, especially with the cochlear devices and the resound hearing aids. And they're saying that the students want to use these little clip style microphones, but they don't want to use their Roger microphones, for example. And so as an audiologist, you know, people will ask me, well, which one is better? Well, if I had to make a choice, I would always recommend either like the FM system or the DM system. There's a reason why those are better for school use. They give you a little bit more range. The sound is going to be better. You're going to have features like dynamic signal processing that you can't get with these little clip style microphones. However, if it's used to clip style microphones or nothing, yes, I would go with the clip style microphone. But understand that I would still prefer having, you know, having the FM or DM system available, especially for for the school use. Okay, next slide. And so another way that we can connect is from a Bluetooth signal to an induction device. So let me describe that next slide. So the way that these products work is I would have my phone that would connect via Bluetooth to one of these induction devices. And then these devices would go up to my amplification via telecoil through the induction signal. And so this one in the upper left hand corner is my favorite product that I like to use in the car. Because with this, I can do hands free driving. So I wear this around my neck, and I leave my phone, you know, in my purse, or in my mount where I'm looking at the map, you know, while I'm driving. And if my mom decides to have a phone call with me, I press on the neck loop, and I can hear her directly into my cochlear implants. And when I talk, I talk right into this this neck loop device as well. So it works out very, very well. The other products are just examples of other things that are out there. I should also mention to the the one that I was talking about the upper left hand corner, it's separated into two pieces. Because so the one on the right is the device that connects to my phone. But when you separate it, the one on the left is actually a remote Bluetooth microphone. Also, I call this kind of like the poor man's FM system. So if I'm in the car, and I cannot understand my children in the backseat, I take that remote microphone that's on the left, and I just hand it back to them. And they talk into it. And I am able to hear. So it's a pretty cool little product. Okay, next slide. Okay, so now let's talk about alerting options. So you may get many questions from parents or students about ways to wake up in the morning. So next slide. So there are basically three ways that a person with hearing loss can be alerted. The first way would be with a very, very loud alarm. The second way would be with a flashing or strobe light. And the third way would be via vibration. So there was actually a study that was done and they look not only at people that were deaf or hard of hearing, but they also looked at people that had normal hearing. And of the three, the one that was most effective was what? vibration. Okay, so I mean, and that makes total sense to me, I'll be in a hotel. And if there's a strobe light, well, what happens if I'm laying down and I'm not facing the light, it's not going to wake me up. So vibration is the most effective way to alert a person with hearing loss. Next slide. So there are different products that are out there. And the upper left hand corner is the product that I have, it comes in kind of two pieces. The one on the left is kind of what I call mission control. That's what sits on the bedside table next to my bed. It connects to my phone, the doorbell, the fire alarms in our house. But then the one on the right is actually in our living room. Excuse me. And it connects to a light. So if I have just taken a shower, and I haven't put my cochlear implants on yet, and someone rings the doorbell, then that receiver on the right will will flash and will flash the lamp in my living room. And I will know that someone's at the door. Okay, the one on the left has not only it connects to a lamp, but it also has a bed shaker as well. The upper right hand corner is just examples of strobe light flashing alarms, again, may not be as effective. Bottom left hand corner is a product called the life tone. Hang on, I'm going to take a drink. All right. And so that big black dome on top of that alarm clock specifically listens for a fire alarm. So a fire alarm sends out a specific tone. And so this alarm clock will listen for that tone. And if it picks up that tone, you'll see fire like you can see on the display, it will blink, it will vibrate your bed. Bottom right is just, you know, stuff that we're seeing for hearing people as well. This is the ring doorbell. I have many, many deaf and hard of hearing friends and even my parents that love this, it's a, you know, it's a doorbell that if someone rings the doorbell, or if you get movement outside your door, it'll go to your phone and it will alert you to let you know that someone is there. Okay, next slide. Many of you and many of our students now, I think use their cell phone to work as an alarm. Now I do not recommend using your cell phone in vibrate mode and putting it in your pajamas, or sticking it in your pillow and waiting for it to vibrate, because it needs airflow, especially if you're charging it overnight, because it can get very, very hot. Luckily, there are devices that are out there that you can connect to your mobile phone that will have some kind of pillow vibrator or bed shaker kind of attachment. So at the end of this presentation, I'll give you some resources that will show you where to get some of these products. But it's really nice that you can find some of these products. They can cost as little as maybe $30, $40 us to maybe about $100 us. Okay, next slide. Of course, too, we have wearable accessories that are out there. Many of us have Apple watches. I actually have the Android watch. Bottom left hand corner is a product that is in a catalog that I'll talk about that all it does is listen for or it picks up the vibration or it sends a vibration to your wrist. And same with the device on the right, that's called the ditto. And so it can be as fancy as being able to read and reply to text messages or Facebook, or all it does is vibrate to let you know, hey, you need to go look at your phone. So some students I know and adults like to use these products to help them wake up in the morning. Some of them only use it during the daytime when they're awake. Okay, next slide. So let's talk now about telecommunication. Next slide. So of course, we now have video phones and apps that are out there. And this has been wonderful for me as someone that you know, I have a lot of conference calls that I participate in. And I do pretty well talking on the phone, but conference calls are hard. So I appreciate having access to an interpreter in those situations. And I can use it on my computer. I've also used apps. So the bottom left hand corner is an example of using the video relay service through my cell phone. So that puts us on par with, you know, our hearing pairs. And it's wonderful to have that access. Next slide. We also have amplified telephones as well as captioned telephones. Now, I know it's a little bit different there in Canada, that we may have some products that you don't have access to yet. But know that you know, there are products out there that are available that can do this. So the amplified telephones can have a flashing light can be really loud, have a tone control to emphasize high pitches or low pitches. And then the bottom row shows some of the caption telephones that we have available in the US. Go ahead and go to the next slide. Now, we also have captioning for our mobile devices. So here's my thing about caption, captioned telephone, either the landline phone, like I showed in the previous slide, or some of these, the mobile phone technologies, understand that there will be a delay. Okay, and the delay to me is pretty significant. It's at least like a second to a second and a half. And think about your students or think about, you know, an older adult that you might be working with, and trying to listen in on a conversation, and then also having to wait for a second, or maybe two seconds before the text comes up. And for me, that ended up being kind of confusing, I just end up reading the captions only and not trying to listen at the same time. So if you have a student that is going to be working on phone skills, just be aware of that, that there may be a significant delay. Next slide. Another question that I'm often asked is what kind of cell phone should I get for my child or, you know, for me as an adult? So in Canada, as well as in the US, you have cell phones that are called hearing aid compliant or compatible, HAC. And that means there's going to be less interference. The when you listen to it, it's going to be pretty loud. And you're going to have a really strong telecom. And so the HAC or the hearing aid compatibility rating is going to be denoted by either an M or a T. And I'll explain that on the next slide in a moment. But you will find out, you know, how what your HAC rating for your phone is by either looking it up online, or when you go to the telephone store or the phone store, there should be in the specs, you should be able to see it. So go ahead and go to the next slide. So how do the M and T ratings work? So there are basically four levels. So you have four levels for M. So the top level or the strongest level would be M4. And then there's M3, M2, M1. For telecoil, there's T4, T3, T2, T1. For people that have hearing loss, I would not go below M3. So either M3, M4. And for telecoil, either T3 or T4. And so when you look in the specs of a phone, the strongest one is going to be M4 or T4. That means it's going to be pretty loud when you listen to it on the phone. And also, you're going to have a really strong telecoil. And they could get, you know, it could be M3, T4 or T3, T4. But that's what those ratings mean. Each cell phone company is supposed to have a specific number of devices that have this more robust rating for their phone. Next slide. Alright, so now let's talk about apps. Next slide. So I have this need for some reason to collect things and then categorize them, and then share them. And so what I have developed are two lists. The one on the left is an app list for Apple devices. The one on the right is a list for Android devices. So the farthest right column, you'll see a list of the different categories that I have. So let me read them because the interpreter might be blocking the view. It'll say accessibility, then advocacy, then audiology, then classroom tools, then hearing. I can't remember. Let me see what it is. Hold on. Let me look on my slide here that I can see. Oh, hearing tests, and then listening therapy. And then you should be able to see the other categories. So what basically happened is, is anytime a new app comes out that I find out about, or someone tells me about, I will take that and I will put it in my list. And let me show you. Let's go to the next slide. So on the left column, you will see the different icons for the different apps. The next column is going to be the title of the app. And you'll see that it's underlined in blue. So if you click on that title, it'll send you straight to the iTunes store. The next column is the cost. Now understand that the cost can change. It does fluctuate. They go up, they go down, they go free, then they start charging again, you never know. The next column is the short description. So this would be kind of my review or a review that I've seen from from someone else kind of talking about the different app. The next column is the category. So some apps go in multiple categories. And so there's also a master list, which you'll see when you go to the when you go to the list that has all of the apps all on one page. The next column says the company website. So if you're having problems with the app, or you have questions or suggestions, I went ahead and just gave you the link to the company website so that you can provide feedback. Now the last column I think is probably one of the most important. That is the date that I added it to the list. And the way that I organize the page is that the most recent apps are at the top. So if you're thinking, huh, I haven't checked Tina's app list for the past six months, I wonder what she's added, just go to the different page, and you will see the most recent apps at the top. Okay, if you see some of the apps that are highlighted in yellow, that means that those are apps that I highly recommend. So that's how the app list works. Right now, the app list for the Apple devices has a lot more apps than the Android devices because it's been around the longest and I'm still kind of adding to the Android list. Okay, the next page, please. Okay, so what I did is I picked out a couple of the different categories and I picked two apps per category. Understand that this app list has over 300 apps on it now. So there's no way I could talk about all of them in depth. So I tried to figure out my favorite ones. So for in terms of accessibility, this would be the category where you're going to be doing things like speech to text. And so the one on the left, Google Translate is a fantastic app. And what you can what I like about it is not only can you speak into it and it will translate it to say English. But if you have someone that is speaking Spanish or Mandarin or something else, it can even translate it further onto their into their language as well. Now it's not going to be perfect. You know, you might come up with a weird phrase that's not how you would say it in their native language. But if you are stuck, it's a good option. Now the bottom picture is another really cool feature that I like about Google Translate. And when I actually visited Switzerland a few years ago, I use this app because I don't know German. And what happens is is you can take a picture of a sign and it will translate it from one language to another. So I got that that was very useful. Okay, the app on the right is an app called Ava. And what happens with Ava is, is let's say I'm in a small group setting, each person will have a device with Ava loaded onto it. We will join a conversation. And then when this person talks, it's going to be one color. When the next person talks, it's going to be another color. So me as a person with hearing loss, I can follow along with the conversation, because they're all kind of color coded. So that's kind of in you app that's up there. And I know it is available in Canada as well. It's you can use it up to five hours per month for free. And then after that, it's $30 per month unlimited. Okay, next slide. The next category that I wanted to talk about was advocacy. So the app on the left is an app called Sketch. And so my itinerant teachers, you know, every year at the beginning of the year, they go from classroom to classroom with the student. And they talk about, Okay, where's a good place for you to sit? Where's noisy? Where does your teacher stand? And they kind of work that all out. Well, with Sketch, you take that picture and then you can draw all over it. So you could see like the green arrow shows where they should sit, the red arrows are not good places to sit. So you can do all you could do smiley faces and X's and whatever you wanted to do. But that's a nice app. The app on the right is called advocacy, the advocacy board game. And this is an app where you do things like you roll the dice, and then you will say like pick a card, like name the three parts of the ear. And you could see this example is you gave your teacher the FM mic move ahead three spaces. So all of the different cards and activities in this game are all related to advocacy kind of things in a classroom setting. Next slide. This next category is audiology. And I wanted to highlight the app from Otacon professionals. And so what I love about this app and the upper left hand corner, you'll see kind of a screenshot of the app, you can enter in the child's audiogram. And you can do a sound simulation for a male voice, a female voice, and for a child's voice. So I think that that's really cool. You know, simulation, so you have to be careful because that's maybe not exactly what they hear, but it can give them an idea. So the other different screenshots show other features. So the one in the middle on the top row, there's a slider at the bottom. So right now you just see like two students, you know, across from each other, it's quiet. But if you slide it to the right, you'll see more and more people added to the picture, and you will hear more noise. So it's a simulation of how hard it is to hear in quiet versus noise. The picture on the right is showing what happens if you use an FM system at home, versus, you know, just a hearing aid at home, there's also you can do a simulation in school. So there's different kinds of sound simulations within without FM. Bottom right is just a real quick like how do we hear. So for your students that you're working on advocacy goals, or maybe you need just a little bit more, you know, kind of a way to convince a teacher, please use the remote hat. That can be a really great tool. Okay, next slide. Listing therapy is by far the biggest section of this list. There are dozens and dozens of apps that are out there that we can use for listing therapy. My two favorite, the one on the left is called auditory workout. It's very customizable. There's many, many different levels that you could use for different listing kind of activities. And what's great is that it also does data tracking for you. So you can kind of monitor how your student is doing. The one on the right is called bitsboard pro. And I like this one, this is kind of a lower level for the younger kids, there's lots of flashcards where you can teach them, you know, what the different pictures are, or how to say them, or how to say, or how to spell the words. And then there's also listening activities where you listen for the word, and then you pick out the picture. Next line. Another category that I wanted to show you was sign language. There are many apps that are out there that can teach you sign language. Probably my favorite one for new signers is one called my smart hands. And that's the one that you see on the screen. So you see the two screenshots on the left is a woman, she's signing airplane. And what I like about it, because not only do you get a video clip, but she will say airplane, you take your thumb, your pointer finger, and your pinky and it looks like this. And you move it like this airplane. And she helps you to remember what the sign is and how to make that sign. On the right is a screenshot of the fact that you can also do quiz mode. So you'll see a picture and you'll see her signing something. And then you have to pick the correct word. So it's a good way to kind of make sure that receptively you have some practice as well. Alright, next slide. So that was it in terms of the app. So let's talk about resources here before I all be able to take some questions. So go ahead next slide. So I have to do a plug for the Educational Audiology Association. I think this is a fantastic group. And it's not just for educational audiologists. We have many teachers of the deaf that are on here, researchers. Really great information. We have a very active listserv. So we have an email list and people ask very specific questions. So for example, today, a friend of mine posted a couple of days ago about the fact that a parent wanted her to change her audiogram or her audiological evaluation statement because she wanted her student to have extended time on a test. Is that appropriate? And then there was this whole discussion about what was appropriate and what was not appropriate. But it's just a fantastic resource that focuses on kind of more audiological types of issues in a school setting. Next slide. Again, I have this need to collect information and categorize. So I have a social bookmarking site and you may not be able to see it on the screen right now if you're using the captioning. But if you go to the handout, you'll see it. And so for all of these years that I've been collecting bookmarks and links to different things, again, I put them on a list that can categorize them. So when you go to this list, when you click on the link at the bottom, you'll see all of the different links that I've saved. But you can also search them by tags. So for purposes of like today's presentation, you might want to use the hashtag hearing assistive technology or apps or advocacy. So let's go to the next slide. So if you have not been to Karen Anderson site, which is success for children with hearing loss and the link is at the bottom, she has so much information on there. That's really, really great. So you know, when we talk about hearing assistive technology and things like apps, you know, how do you guys know when we should be, you know, when we should be implementing them or, you know, what skills should a student have? And I really like this chart that I have on here, because it breaks it down from pre K, and then kindergarten through grade four, talking about the different skills that your students should have. So if you're not really sure like where you should start or where you should be going, this is a really great resource to have. Next slide. Social media, of course, is a great place to find information. There are many different Facebook pages for everything from Microsia and Atresia. There's even a Facebook page for people that have single sided deafness and want to get a cochlear implant. I mean, it can get that narrow. So that's a great tool to have. The other thing I want to point out is YouTube. So let's say you have a device, and you can't remember how to change the battery or how to change the program. Most of the companies will have a YouTube channel that will then kind of, you know, show you how to do all of these different things when you can't remember. Not only can YouTube teach you about devices, but they can also teach you, you can see apps while they're working, you know, you can see them in progress with with the student. So YouTube is a very great resource as well. Next slide. So I talked about a catalog. So in the US, my favorite catalog is something called Harris Communications. And they have a website as well. But if I always have a copy of this catalog in my backpack with me, because I always have students or parents or other adults asking me about assistive technology, and it's great to just be able to pull it out. And so, you know, you can get all of all the things that I talked about today, except for the apps are going to be in this catalog categorized by, you know, like alarm systems, or things like that. The assistive technology guide, which is the picture on the right, is actually something that you can download off their website. So it's kind of like a brief synopsis of what I talked about today. Now, I'm not sure if they'll ship to Canada, but in the US, I can get those Harris communication catalogs, I can get a box of 70, like seven zero, and they will send it to me for free. So I hand those out like handy when I go to different, you know, conferences or things like that. I probably have Harris communication catalogs going back like 10 years, some things change and some things don't. What I like to do is I give these older catalogs to my teachers. And then what they do is they do an activity, especially for the younger kids, they'll say like, okay, you're in your bedroom, what kind of assistive technology would you want in your bedroom? And they cut out the different pictures of the different alarms they might want to have in their bedroom. And they, you know, put it on a poster board or whatever. And so that's a great way to kind of reuse those catalogs. Next slide. If you want to go more in depth into the audiological part of hearing assistive and access technology, I highly recommend this book by my friend his name is Samuel Atreson. He's also an audiologist with bilateral cochlear implants. And he and his colleagues wrote this really great book. That's a very good resource. Next slide. I also listed out here, the last two slides talking, these are the iTunes websites for the different hearing aid companies. And if you go to the next slide, you'll see the iTunes websites also for the different cochlear implant companies. So I just kind of gathered that all for you. So if you want to see what apps that you know, Advanced Bionics has or Phonak has, you can see them all in one place from these different websites. Okay, next slide, I think it's the last one. And I think that is the last one. So at this time, I have some questions, and I'm happy to answer them now, we have about seven more minutes. So if you have a question, feel free to send them through the chat box and they'll read them out to me. And I am ready. Okay, I hope everyone can hear me. So the first question is, can the AVA app be used in a conference or group call situation? So the question was that the AVA app, can it be used in a group call situation? Yes, that's right. It's not used over, it's not used to caption a telephone call, it's only supposed to be used by talking into the phone, like a microphone. I hope that answers your question. Okay, our next question is, what are must have features for hearing aids that parents should be considering when choosing their child's hearing aids? I would say the most important thing would be that it is compatible with FM or DM. And that usually means hearing aids that use a size 13 battery, which is the one with the orange sticker. If it uses the smaller batteries like the 312 batteries, which is the brown sticker, or the size 10 batteries, which is the yellow sticker, that's not going to have a lot of battery power, and they're probably not going to have the ability to connect with FM or DM. Some of those hearing aids, though, can connect to things like a streamer. But again, I think for school use, the FMDM should be priority and not the little streamer devices. I would also recommend that, especially for kids that you use, that you get a hearing aid that is pretty water resistant. So things that are, you know, like they can get splashed a little bit, or they're not, you know, going to get, if they sweat a little bit, it should still be okay. So I see some questions also in the in the chat box. Let me answer a couple of these. So someone asked me about my favorite speech to text device that you can recommend for classroom. I know that there are some people that are using Ava in a classroom setting. And even if you go to the Ava website, you will see that they are advertising that you can use it in the classroom. And so they have, for example, they sell now like Bluetooth microphones that can connect to a phone. So then you can have, you know, the captioning that shows up there. And you know, I have mixed feelings about that. If it's some access versus no access, you know, some is always going to be good. But you know, if the school is willing to investigate other speech to text like cart, or even things like C print, like the letter C print, or type well, those would be better served, I think, for students, because voice recognition technology is just not there yet. You know, and it's almost more confusing to have bad captioning than to have no captioning. You know, think about when you look on YouTube videos, and you know, the teachers try to turn on the captioning, and it's so bad and a bunch of, you know, swear words come along the bottom and, you know, totally disrupts the classroom. You have to think about that as well. Okay. Someone also commented that Harris Communications does ship to Canada, but it's not free. Thank you for that comment. Another comment was how do I find the sound quality of Bluetooth? In comparing Bluetooth to like FM or DM, FM and DM will win every time. I just I don't think that the Bluetooth is there. If you were to do a side by side comparison. So again, some versus nothing, yeah, Bluetooth will do but my preference will always be FM DM. Alright, any other questions? Okay, Tina, there is a question in the Q&A. So I'm just going to ask everybody. If you do have questions, please use the Q&A window. So is there a way for adults to monitor the streaming devices such as the Mini Max? When a child is unable to tell us any information, how do we know that they're working? Well, that's a really great question. So the cochlear implants all have the ability to use like a monitor earphone. And so what you can tell us so like if you have a streaming device which is here, and then you have the cochlear implant device, you can tell if it's working because you can plug in headphones into the hearing aid or to the cochlear implant or, you know, a stethoscope for hearing aids or earphones for the cochlear implant. What you can't tell is what is the kid doing like because we can't get into the kid's head for cochlear implants to know if it's working or not. If you have a concern and this child is not yet a good reporter, I don't recommend streaming devices for young kids that are not good reporters. Okay, and even for our young kids that are using things like ear level FM or DM, if they're not a good reporter, how do we know if that's working or not, especially for the cochlear implant kids. So your goal should be first, make sure that they can tell you if it's on or off or if it's working before then you go to this ear level thing, because it's not going to be successful. I mean, the other option would be get receivers that have the blinking light, but you can't always tell that. I mean, I know that the lights will blink on the processors to let you know that it's connected, but it still doesn't tell you what's happening from the implant to what the kid is hearing. Okay, one more question. If a student upgrades their hearing aids, does their FM system need to be replaced as well? It depends on the processor. If it's if it's a hearing aid, if it's using something like an a universal receiver, which is like the little the little silver cube, then they might just need to switch out one part like the audio shoe or or the adapter. Like for example, you know, I have advanced bionics devices. If I were to upgrade to a naive, then I would need a completely different kind of receiver. So yes, that would need to be upgraded. But it really depends on the it depends on the on the device going from one to one. And I think that is probably more difficult for the cochlear implant systems for cochlear and for advanced bionics, because the way that they approach using an FM or DM receiver is that it's a very integrated piece that only fits with their specific processing. Okay, Tina, thank you very much. Our hour is up already. We just want to thank you for taking the time to share all your knowledge of assistive technology and all the extensions that go along with that. So thank you very much. You guys are welcome.