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Hearing Dogs January 19, 2019

Hearing Dogs is the next topic at our HLAA chapter meeting on January 19, 2019 from 10 AM-Noon. Bill Ordonez will be presenting, he is a former dog trainer for Hearing Dogs. The Hearing Dog is a service dog specifically selected and trained to assist Deaf and Hard of Hearing people.  The dogs alert their handlers to important sound such as; doorbells, smoke alarms, ringing phones, alarm clocks and more.

  • Can you train dogs yourself?
  • Should you get a hearing dog from an organization?
  • What breeds make a good hearing dog?
  • Training expectations for owning a hearing dog.
  • Expectations for a dog from an organization.

Bill worked at the Riverside, California Humane Society in the late 70’s while the program was still in its infancy. Currently he is working with a scent detection dog.

All our meetings have real-time captioning and assistive listening. If you need an ASL interpreter, please let hearinglossutah@gmail.com know.  Thank you.

Hearing Dog Flyer 12_18_2018

hearing dog flyer

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Solo Traveling with Hearing Loss

We are excited to have Michele Linder present at our HLAA chapter meeting on November 17th from 10 AM to noon on traveling with a hearing loss. Get over your fear of traveling with hearing loss! Michele has good tips and strategies on conquering solo traveling.  Michele has no usable hearing and gets by on lipreading (and sometimes notes back and forth) in life as well as traveling in foreign countries successfully.  Also, chapter members Charla and Kevin will tell us how to make sure cruise ships are accessible to our hearing loss.

Traveling Solo with HL

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October 20, 2018 Meeting Update

We have Susan from Access Simplified’s Medical Access App coming to our meeting to talk for about 30 minutes. She’s looking for feedback on the app they are creating which enables people with various forms of hearing loss to immediately communicate with medical staff at hospitals. The app uses pre-recorded videos with choice of text or ASL and captions along with audio to convey standard phrases and questions you would encounter in a medical setting. The app is interactive which allows the patient, visitor or staff to respond by pressing buttons. Check it out and your feedback is greatly appreciated.

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When Susan is done, the games will begin, join us!

 

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August 18, 2018 Meeting

Our next meeting is officially announced! Please join us for us August meeting in a social setting. Follow the RSVP directions below to meet up with us.

There were several workshops offered, so many to chose from which is probably why it was a good thing 4 of us from Utah attended. There were workshops on social stigma of hearing loss, making the most of smartphone apps for hearing loss and attending workshops of looping venues.

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Summer Social June 16th at Red Robin

June is our annual social and we chose the Red Robin restaurant at the Valley Fair Mall. Oh no, a restaurant? That’s the plan. Watch and learn from the more experienced members with hearing loss how to handle restaurant situations to reduce the typical anxiety that comes with experience. Please let us know you will be joining us, RSVP with hearinglossutah@gmail.com. We will be meeting at noon on June 16th and we plan to be together for about an hour and a half. The address is listed below.

red robin

Also, bring your smartphone and have the AVA app ready to go. If you missed our AVA meeting, here’s your chance to learn more about it. We will be running our phones with AVA throughout the meeting giving everyone a chance to gain experience with the app so it can be used in other areas of life; doctor appointments, large family gatherings and meetings.

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Our leadership changes in June; Bill Ordonez will be our president replacing Kathy Evans and Karen Faddis will be the treasurer replacing Chelle Wyatt.  There will be no meeting in July so make sure you don’t miss this one. Come hang out with us and soak up some tribe time.

Red Robin at the Valley Fair Mall

3601 South 2700 West #B152

West Valley City, UT 84119

Let them know you want the Vault, we reserved a private room for our meeting.

Here’s some pictures of socials past….

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Bring Back Music into Your Life

May is Better Hearing and Speech month and HLAA-SLC is celebrating with an event called Bring Music Back into Your Life on Saturday May 19th from 4-8 PM. This event is made possible with a combined effort from HLAA-SLC, Loop Utah and the Division of Services to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

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In addition to the groups listed above we couldn’t do it without participation from some of our favorite local companies who support hearing loss: CaptionCall, Vibe Music Events, Listen Tech, CapTel, Cochlear America, CostCo Hearing Aids of Sandy UT, Hale Centre Theatre, Relay Utah and the U of U Student Academy of Audiology.

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We have a lot of activities planned and much of it in the Loop! Our presentations will be in the hearing loop, we will be playing movies in the hearing loop and there’s the accessible dance floor by Vibe Music Events which is itself looped. To experience great sound, make sure your hearing aid and cochlear implants have the telecoil program turned on. What’s a telecoil? (Sometimes called t-coil.) Visit this website,then make an appointment with your audiologist to ask him/her if your hearing aids (cochlear implants have them) have a t-coil because you want to experience hearing loops. Other accommodations include CART (real time captioning) and ASL interpreters so everyone can enjoy the event.

And there’s a lot to enjoy. Make sure you try the accessible dance platform by Vibe in the gym with various genres of music. Finger foods will be available along with devices that have a t-coil so hearing people can see the difference a hearing loops makes too.

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We will also have a living room loop set up in the lounge playing Gael Hannan’s Unheard Voices and there will be musical movies playing theater style in the lecture hall which has a hearing loop. Loop products and information will be set up in the conference room along with information, find out how easy it is to install a living room loop or have on installed. Bluetooth information will be available here too because we love both technologies.

Peter McDonald, hearing instrument specialist will be giving a presentation at 5:00 on the hearing aid music program, streaming and apps that can help.  Have you heard of the speech banana? “The “Speech Banana” is a useful visual tool for describing where the sounds used in everyday human speech occur on an audiogram.” Hearing aids are programmed with the sounds of speech in mind but that doesn’t work for music. Learn how another program on your hearing devices can increase your enjoyment of music with Peter.

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At 6:00 experience Maclain Drake’s energy and enthusiasm for music and how he didn’t let hearing loss keep him from it. He takes on acting too. He will talk about the challenges with music and how he works through it all. His passion for making music accessible to all runs deep.  Maclain has had a hearing loss all his life and wears two hearing aids.

 

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Maclain as a young Han Solo.

The best part of this is getting to hang out with your hearing loss tribe. Nothing beats being with others who know what you are going through and how best to to talk to you. Meet others in the community with hearing loss and make new friends, find mentors and learn how it’s possible to live better with hearing loss. Register now here: https://jobs.utah.gov/usor/dhh/events/northern.html