Assistive Listening Technology

Today’s digital hearing aids provide accurate and natural sounding hearing for most people and are programmed to help you hear speech in normal conversation, even in quite challenging environments. However, there are still times when you might struggle to hear the TV or phone as clearly as you would like, which is when additional assistive technology could be of help. Typical areas of hearing difficulty are:

• Listening to TV
• Listening to Telephone
• Listening in meetings
• Listening to music
• Listening to mobile phones and tablets

The importance of the service in today’s economic climate is that equipment must be purchased privately. Assistive technology can be very expensive and seem more complicated than it really is. We help you to selecting the correct equipment by offering free impartial advice and by allowing you to try out equipment such as phones, loops, personal listeners and alerting devices.

ALT Clinics

Our clinics aim to help you try and select equipment to help you in your daily lives. Equipment is available to help with day-to-day living, with social life, with work life and with safety of those with hearing loss.

We offer open and appointment-based clinics where you can obtain impartial advice before purchasing equipment.

Open Clinics

For advice on phones, TV listeners and listening in social situations, we hold open clinics every Thursday morning at our Thorpe Road offices, every first Wednesday of the month in Great Yarmouth and on occasional Wednesdays at the ACT Centre in Aylsham.

Appointments

For advice on listening in the workplace, higher education and more complex issues, we offer appointments on Tuesdays at Cromer Hospital and at Thorpe Road.

Hearing Loss and Safety

If you are not wearing your hearing aids, at night or at other times, you need

devices that will wake you up if needed and keep safe. Flashing lights or pillow vibrators are indispensable for such devices as:

• Fire alarms
• Doorbells
• Alarm clocks
• Phone ring indicators.

Purchasing

The NDA do not sell equipment, nor can we supply equipment free of charge. However, we can provide you an opportunity to try some items and provide information about how to place orders with Sarabec, Action on Hearing Loss (RNID) or Connevans, and Hearing Products International. They offer secure internet shopping and, as a hearing aid user, you may be able to claim VAT relief on some items.