Tactile Aids for the Hearing Impaired

Tactile aids can offer a particularly cost-effective answer to the increasing demand for technical aids for the profoundly and totally deaf. This book covers the design of tactile aids - single and multichannel - and the ways in which they may benefit the hearing impaired.
Authors from Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA have contributed chapters, and among the topics they cover are: fundamentals of vibrotactile and electrotactile perception; signal processing strategies; tactile coding (including synthetic Tadoma); choice of subjects and subject training; evaluation of tactile aids and comparison with cochlear implants; and communication for the deaf-blind.

The book should provide a useful reference for those who work with the profoundly deaf, students and others with interests in the perception of speech and environmental sound.

Foreword.
Preface.

List of contributors.

Chapter 1. Perception via the sense of touch (Ronald T. Verrillo and George A. Gescheider).

Chapter 2. Electrical stimulation of the skin (Brian H. Brown and John C. Stevens).

Chapter 3. The design of vibrotactile trasducers (Roger W. Cholewiak and Michael Wollowitz).

Chapter 4. Communication of the acoustic environment via tactile stimuli (Janet M. Weisenberger).

Chapter 5. Signal processing strategies for single-channel systems (Ian R. Summers).

Chapter 6. Signal processing strategies for multichannel systems (James L. Mason and Barrie J. Frost).

Chapter 7. The selection and training of tactile aid users (Geoff Plant).

Chapter 8. The evaluation of tactiles aids (Lynne E. Bernstein).

Chapter 9. The potential benefit and cost-effectiveness of tactile devices in comparison with cochlear implants (Peter J. Blamey and Robert S.C. Cowan).

Chapter 10. Natural methods of tactual communication (Charlotte M. Reed, Nathaniel I. Durlach and Lorraine A. Delhorne).

Chapter 11. A comparative trial of four vibrotactile aids (A. Roger D. Thornton and Andrew J. Phillips).

Index.