Article history: Received:31 July, 2020 Accepted:15 September, 2020 Online:12 October, 2020

Deaf Chat: A Speech-to-Text Communication Aid for Hearing Deficiency

The rapid increase and furthermore; rising trends in hearing disorders has drawn attention of relevant experts to study, analyze, design and implement solutions for effective management. Often, due to lack of awareness, improper hearing is wrongly concluded as hearing impairment. There are several factors that can adversely affect hearing, one of them being earwax blockage. With timely diagnosis and right approach to cleaning the ear canal, the person's hearing ability can be restored. This paper discusses a smartphone based approach for detecting the ear condition. The system comprises of the bone conduction headset, a regular headset and the developed app. When integrated with the patient, the app results in indicating the type of condition; Hearing Impairment or Earwax Blockage. In case of earwax blockage, the system is capable of indicating the severity of the condition using percentile scale. This cost-effective and portable solution will enable early detection of the condition when incorporated in schools and other health awareness campaigns, thus preventing permanent damage or hearing loss due to earwax blockage.

Diagnostic Approach for Hearing Impairment and Earwax Blockage using Smartphone

Hearing is an important sense of coexistence, but majority of people taken it for granted unless it is weakened or lost. In this paper, an Assistive Intelligent Hearing Aid System (AIHAS) is proposed that supports hearing impaired patients and allow them to live a normal life. The patients will be required to wear smart glasses equipped with bone conduction technology and wirelessly connected with an application running on patient's smartphone. The AIHAS is designed to: (1) detect multiple ear damages, (2) evaluates the degree of patient's hearing loss, (3) having smart filters with two different modes based on surrounding environment, and (4) assist children with articulation development. The patients will be able to choose between two types of filters i.e. Quiet Room (QR) and Noisy Room (NR) filter depending on the surrounding environment. Additionally, an Auditory Assistive mode is also added to AIHAS to train and assist children with speech disorders caused by hearing impairment at a younger age. The AIHAS also allows interfacing with a smartwatch for easier system access. The system prototype has been developed and tested with multiple patients. The proposed AIHAS is an intelligent, low cost, reliable and a portable solution.

Noureldin Mohammed

Papers

Intelligent Hearing System using Assistive Technology for Hearing-Impaired Patients