The 29-year-old business student knew that her hearing was faltering but didn't know why it was so hard to keep up her 2.0 grade-point average.

She eventually got her hearing tested, and got fitted with a hearing aid equipped with a new twist on an old technology, called T-coil. Her struggles ended.

Groups such as Self Help for Hard of Hearing People and the state Commission for Deaf & Hard of Hearing Persons are trying to make the technology commonplace in public places around Albuquerque.

About a dozen Albuquerque churches have the technology or are investigating installing it. The National Hispanic Cultural Center of New Mexico has five portable units.

"There are no museums, no public places that are looped," said Sally Schwartz, president of Hand Links LLC, an Albuquerque company that sells equipment for people with hearing and vision problems.

The Hispanic Cultural Center has had the five loops since since 2004, but they're seldom used, said Andrez Martinez, an audio engineer and technical supervisor.

"We have had one neck loop out of its package since we've been open," Martinez said. "I think some people don't know about them, so we've been in the process of putting some signage up at the box office area."

That's part of the problem: Places that have T-coil systems don't always advertise them, said Stephen Frazier, editor of Wired for Sound, a newsletter for the New Mexico chapter of Self Help for Hard of Hearing People.

That makes it hard for hearing aid wearers to know that the system is there, he said.

The Hispanic Cultural Center plans to have signs up this week, Martinez said.

The hard of hearing community hopes that as more businesses learn about the technology, they will realize that it's a big draw for potential customers who will come to a place where they can hear well, said Carol Clifford, an audiologist in Albuquerque.

"If you can appeal to a whole set of consumers why wouldn't somebody do that?" she said. "I think it comes from consumers not demanding it and not knowing that it's out there."

A better sound

Audio loop technology and T-coil hearing aids aren't new, but they have been improved in recent years. The basic system was created in the 1940s.

"The whole difference, and the special thing about this, is it works with the hearing aids," Frazier said.

Other technologies amplify all sounds, including bass ranges that hard of hearing people typically can hear, Frazier said.

"When I turn my hearing aids off and put a headset on, it sounds like somebody cranked the bass on an amplifier," Frazier said of the more common headset technology used in many movie theaters and museums.

With T-coil technology, the speaker talks into a microphone that transmits a signal picked up by a loop of wire.

The wire creates a magnetic field that transmits sound to the T-coil in the hearing aid.

The wire loop can be worn like a necklace or strung around a large room, such as a movie theater or lecture hall, Schwartz said.

The advantage, she said, is that T-coil hearing aids filter out background noise and other sounds so that the speaker's voice is clear and easy for the hard of hearing to understand.

In a room with an installed loop, hearing aid wearers only have to flip a switch on the device to hear the speaker clearly.

Changing her life

In class, Peinado uses a personal T-coil system she got in November. Her instructor wears a small microphone on his tie; it sends a signal to the loop she wears around her neck.

"Out of a five-word sentence, I'd catch the third or fourth word," Peinado said of her life before the T-coil.

"I'd try to string everything together to get what everyone else was getting," she said, but it was too hard.

Brenda Fierro de Salaiz, a friend who's been in every class with Peinado since they both started working on their bachelor's degrees in June 2003, said the technology has changed Peinado's life.

"A lot of times, she didn't want to attribute her lower grades to not being able to hear, but if you did a timeline, you can definitely see an increase in her participation, grades and involvement at the university," Fierro de Salaiz said.

Peinado's GPA has risen from a 2.0 to a 2.9 since she started using the T-coil technology, which she credits for letting her finally understand what her teacher is saying.

No excuse

The costs of T-coil systems are often less than other technologies for the hearing impaired and they work better, audiologists say.

Small systems cost about $265, while larger ones for public buildings start around $895, Schwartz said.

"There's no excuse right now to not use this," she said.

T-coil technology is ubiquitous in Europe but has yet to take off in the United States, Frazier said.

"Why is it not more common? I think it's ignorance on all of our parts," Clifford said.

People who hear well don't realize that simply making sound louder through headphones doesn't usually make it more clear for those with hearing problems, and many people with hearing aids don't realize the technology is there, she said.

"I think people with hearing aids need to realize this is out there and need to ask their doctor if they have one," Clifford said. "I think people that have hearing loss have to be advocating."

By Sue Vorenberg
http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_local/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19858_4514860,00.html