Monday, June 17, 2002

HOLLAND -- The voices coming out of the television make a lot more sense to Holland resident Donald Gerbraad since he installed induction audio loop in his home.

"(Local newscaster) Suzanne Geha always sounded like a chipmunk. Now, I can hear her," said the 78-year-old Gerbraad, who wears hearing aids in both ears.

While hearing aids amplify sound, words become distorted when competing with background noise. With loop technology, the television's sound is broadcast directly through his hearing aids into his ears.

Gerbraad has his phone and television looped. He plans to add a microphone in the kitchen so his wife can talk to him.

"I can hear throughout the whole house. It's really an answer for people like me," Gerbraad said.

He is one of many who have offered high praise for David Myers, a Hope College psychology professor, who began an initiative six months ago to educate people about the technology, which is commonplace in some European countries.

"I think the response has been very terrific and very gratifying," said Myers, who first experienced the technology two years ago when he was worshipping in the centuries-old Iona Abbey in Scotland. Sounds echoed off the stone walls until he pushed a button on his hearing aids. It opened him to "a whole world of listening that literally had me almost in tears of joy," he said.

Induction audio loops, which involve looping a wire around a room and hooking it into a public address system, allow a speaker's comments to be transmitted through an electromagnetic field to certain types of hearing aids. The technology requires a person have hearing aids with telecoil, or T-coil, receivers.

When Myers returned home, he outfitted his television with the system. It worked so well, he plans to extend it to his phone and put the technology into his office at Hope College. The college is installing the technology in several locations.

Putting the technology in public institutions throughout the community is just the start, Myers said.

"I personally think the potential for home applications for this exceeds the institutional applications."

The loop system can go almost anywhere, said Dick McKinley, sales/design engineer for PremoVation, the local installer of the technology manufactured in England.

One of his customers soon will have his car looped.

"He takes long trips with his wife and they can't talk to each other," McKinley said.

Churches and other institutions have only until the end of the month to qualify for a grant from the Community Foundation of the Holland-Zeeland Area available to help pay for the technology. To get on the list for the grant, nonprofit groups in the Holland-Zeeland area must ask for an appointment in June, Myers said. The grant will pay for installation through February. The deadline was extended because of the overwhelming interest.

Holland City Hall's Council Chambers, Herrick District Library and the Howard Miller Library in Zeeland, along with scores of churches, have been -- or are scheduled to be -- outfitted with the technology.

Myers said he hopes the Holland-Zeeland area becomes an example for the rest of the nation. His efforts already have sparked orders across the state, from Grand Rapids to Midland, according to McKinley.

"Dr. Myers was the catalyst for this," McKinley said, adding Macatawa Bank has looped a teller window. He believes businesses with drive-through windows -- such as pharmacies, banks and restaurants -- are ideal for looping. Without the technology, it's difficult for people with hearing aids to understand what is being said through the speakers. The cost, estimated at $600, is affordable, he added.

"People assume you have to be 80 years old to wear hearing aids, but we see a lot of people between 30 and 50 years old," McKinley said.

Next week, Myers will speak to the board of directors of the national organization Self Help for Hard of Hearing People at its annual conference. While there, he also will give a seminar about the technology to conference attendees. Myers wants the organization to get behind his efforts.

Susan Matt, the president of the organization based in the Seattle, Washington area, admits she is impressed with the technology.

"From a personal perspective, I appreciate the loop system because you don't have to wear a neck loop," Matt said, who wore hearing aids for 20 years before she became aware they could be ordered with telecoils.

One of the reasons audiologists may not recommend the feature to their patients is because there haven't been many places equipped with induction audio loop systems, she said.

"I have not ever encountered a loop system in a public place," Matt said, adding she would like see the technology at work in Holland.