Making Cell Phones Audible to the Deaf

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are currently working on a new way of making sounds accessible for deaf people again. At the same time, they are looking to provide a cheaper alternative to cochlear implants, which are prohibitively expensive, especially in the developing world. The new class of devices is based on touch, and can make it easier for individuals who can lip-read poorly to understand what others are saying, nuances included.

“Most deaf people will not have access to that technology in our lifetime. Tactile devices can be several orders of magnitude cheaper than cochlear implants,” MIT graduate student Ted Moallem, who is part of the team working on the new project, explains. Together with study leader Charlotte Reed, who is a senior research scientist at the Research Laboratory of Electronics, he is working on a new software, which will hopefully be able to turn existing mobile devices into deaf-friendly platforms.

“Anyone who has a smart phone already has much of what they would need to run the program,” Moallem adds. The main innovation that the MIT system is expected to bring is the fact that the tactile device, in addition to transforming sounds into vibrations, will do so twice – once for low-wave sounds, and again for high-wave ones. The researchers hope that this will aid people who cannot hear get a better sense of the meaning of the conversation they are engaged in.

The new system will also relieve deaf persons from having to pay a lot of attention in a conversation to lip-reading, which can be a very exhausting task. “It's hard to have a casual conversation in a situation where you have to be paying attention like that,” Moallem explains. At this point, he shares, existing tactile technologies can be worn around the neck or held in hand. But they envision a technology that could be incorporated in smartphones. All they need is the software they are currently working on, and the main focus of their research is to determine which way of turning sounds into vibrations is better.

“We were inspired by seeing what deaf-blind people could accomplish just using the sense of touch alone,” Reed concludes, expressing her optimism that the technique will soon become available to those in need.