A WIRELESS SELF-CONTAINED TACTILE AID

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This work is aimed at the development of a tactile aid for the deaf contained entirely in a single small unit that can be worn on an arm like a wristwatch. Two models of such a tactile aid will eventually be developed. The first, which is the primary motivation for the proposed effort, is a unit that would provide tactile stimulation for infants and young children during the time period when they are awaiting a cochlear implant. This unit will be a small single-vibrator device designed with special attention given to the safety and usage requirements for this population. A second model will be an adult unit that will be slightly larger than the children's unit and will contain additional wireless receiver functionality for displaying alarms signaling remote events (e.g., doorbell, smoke alarm) and for delivering speech sensed by a remote microphone. The Phase I work will focus entirely on developing the children's unit, although much of the work will apply to the adult unit as well. Prototypes developed by the end of Phase I will be tested for vibrotactile performance, safety, ruggedness, water-tightness, and battery life. During Phase II, the children's unit will be constructed in sufficient numbers to enable field trials, and the adult unit design will be completed, prototyped, and tested. Integration of the tactile aid's components in a small wrist-worn package will eliminate the wires that connect the electronics to the vibrators of current tactile aids. This improvement, which faces challenges from feedback, battery life, and size, will make tactile aids much easier to use than they currently are. The children's version will provide awareness of sound to young deaf children during the early stages of development before they receive cochlear implants. The adult version will provide speech-reading assistance for those oral deaf communicators who do not use a cochlear implant. For this group, as well as for the non-oral deaf, the proposed aid will provide environmental sound awareness and signal alerting functions in a convenient package. Public Relevance This work is relevant to public health because the resulting product will enhance speech and language communication and awareness of environmental sounds, and is applicable to the large community of deaf and hearing impaired individuals under a broad range of circumstances, from pre-implant children to individuals for whom cochlear implants are not suitable or desirable.