FM Transmitters

FM Transmitter Systems are wonderful! An FM System not only allows an individual to hear better by complimenting their hearing aid, but an FM system also helps extend one’s hearing range. Even though the technology behind a hearing aid is amazingly wonderful because a hearing aid can allow someone to have their life back just by simply allowing them to hear again. However, sometimes hearing through a hearing aid in general is not helpful enough if the sound you are listening to continues to relocate or move away from you. For example, when a teacher is speaking in front of a child who wears a hearing aid, that child can hear great, until the teacher moves away from that child and walks to the other side of the classroom. When a teacher wears an FM system microphone (connecting with the receiver end on the child’s hearing aid), the child can then hear just fine no matter where the teacher moves about the classroom as the voice of the teacher is still with the microphone transmitting the teacher’s voice directly into the child’s ear through their hearing aid. It is as if the teacher is always standing directly in front of the child while teaching during class. The below information will help you to better understand how well an FM Transmitter System works and much it improves hearing preventing an individual from missing out on what is being taught in a classroom or similar setting.

Hearing Aid and FM Transmitter Simulation…

Produced by Jim Bombicino and the Vermont Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc.

This video will help you understand how well an FM Transmitter system can help your child hear in the classroom when used in conjunction with their hearing aid or BAHA (bone anchored hearing aid).

This video will also help you understand how difficult it is to hear in the classroom if you do not have an FM System for your hearing aid/BAHA.

The below link and video can help you understand why it is so important to have an FM System used in the classroom.  A hearing device such as an FM System may be written into your child’s IEP, and provided by the Public School, at no cost to you.
http://www.phonak.com/nz/b2c/en/products/fm/what_is_fm/what_is_dynamic_fm.html

If you would like more information on FM systems, please visit www.phonak.com

The above images are of a young girl named Sarah wearing her Cochlear Baha and her Oticon Ponto Pro with an FM receiver attached to the processor for the FM Transmitter system.  Above are also pictures of what an FM System looks like including the receiver and how the leads of the receiver plug directly into the microphone holes a of a conductive sound processor.  As you can see, the FM receiver is quite small when pictured along with a sound processor and its battery.

Trends in Classroom Amplification…

Here is a nice article explaining amplification and hearing loss in the classroom:  http://www.nsslha.org/uploadedFiles/NSSLHA/publications/cicsd/2008FTrendsinClassroomAmplification.pdf

Another nice article explaining the FM system and how amplification can help one hear better in the classroom is called:
“Speech Perception Benefits of FM and Infrared Devices to Children With Hearing Aids in a Typical Classroom”
by Karen L. Anderson and Howard Goldstein
Florida State University, Tallahassee
LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS • Vol. 35 • 169–184 • April 2004