Twin challenges: vision and hearing loss

00:08 S1

Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from January the 7th, 2025. Yes, happy New year! Hope it's going to be a terrific one for you. I'm Stephen Jolley. Great to have you with us, listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated stations of the Radio Reading Network or the Community Radio Network. There is also the podcast. To catch that, all you need to do is search for the two words talking tech. And it can all come usually on a Tuesday afternoon just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask your Siri device or smart speaker to play Vision Australia Radio talking tech podcast Vision Australia Radio Talking tech podcast. 

Normally with me is Damo McMorrow, Vision Australia's national access technology manager. Damo is taking his Christmas holiday break at the moment and will return at the end of January. However, shortly before Christmas Day, Damo sat down with colleague and friend Kimberley Nean. Kimberley is a participant in the Vision Australia graduate program on placement at the Coorparoo Centre in Brisbane. 

S3

Kimberley, welcome to Talking Tech.

01:19 S2

Thank you. It's lovely to be here, Damo.

01:21 S3

I think I first met you when I did your workplace assessment, and I was quite intrigued by sort of some of the different models and some of the different tech that you use by way of background, though. So you are part of our graduate program here at Vision Australia. Tell me a little bit about your vision and hearing condition.

01:41 S2

So I have Usher Syndrome. I was born with Usher Syndrome. I have had a hearing loss since birth, so I've had a severe to profound hearing loss and have worn bilateral hearing aids since I was a toddler. And then when I was 11, they realised that I had a problem with my vision as well. And by the time I was 18, I was legally blind. Still wearing hearing aids, of course. I still wear them to this day. However, I'm now in my 40s and in my 30s. I did go totally blind.

02:12 S3

So it's been quite a journey for you then, with a lot of changes along the way.

02:17 S2

Yes yes, yes.

02:20 S3

How has that sort of impacted have you had to change careers in that kind of thing?

02:25 S2

Yeah. So that was some choices that I made starting off as a teenager coming into, you know, early adulthood and realising, you know, I've got to make a choice for a career path. I love to cook. So it was always a passion of mine to go into the kitchen. So I worked as a chef, realised that it was probably not my smartest moment as much as I really enjoyed doing that. So then I decided that I was going to go work in an office, so I became an accountant instead. I did that for a lot of years, but as my sight was getting worse, I was having to adapt to different technologies. So I've used a variety of technology to access computers and things like that. 

As I went totally blind, that was a it was a rather sudden event that happened, wasn't entirely expected for me, so I wasn't really well prepared for it. So I took a few years off working altogether to kind of learn some skills that I needed to be able to live independently as a blind person. And then I decided to go for another career change. And I'm now a counselor and I'm I'm in the graduate program at Vision Australia. I'm hoping to find my next job after that.

03:33 S3

Excellent, excellent. So in terms of the technology, how has that changed for you over time?

03:41 S2

It's been huge, Damo. So I got my first set of hearing aids at almost two. That was 40 years ago. So the technology for hearing it's been roughly the same, but the significant improvement in the technology over the years. So I still wear a basic hearing aid, which has a mold that sits inside the ears with a tube that goes to the amplifying aid which sits over the back of the ears. That particular aid, which is called an over the ear aid, it has changed in size significantly. So when I was two, they were so big that they actually had to be taped to the side of my head. Oh wow. My parents needed to use double sided tape and actually stick them to the side of my head, just to get them to sort of stay in place as I grew. The technology kind of grew with me, so I've used a range of technology to access my primary and secondary education. 

I still had vision in those days, so I was able to read and my hearing was my biggest problem. So I wore a set of hearing aids, one in each ear, and I also used an FM receiver with my teacher wearing the microphone, and I wore the receiving unit. These are some of the original technologies. And so they were attached with a cord and a plug. So I used to literally plug the cord for the FM receiver into the back of each of my hearing aids and feed the cord down through my uniform shirt. And then I had to wear it on a belt because it was it was quite heavy. 

It was about the weight of 3 or 4 mobile phones sort of tied together. It wasn't a light unit. No. Wow. Yeah. And then my teacher wore a similar unit with a microphone clipped to their shirt as well. It made a huge difference for my access to being able to hear what was going on in the classrooms. But it wasn't attractive. It wasn't. It wasn't pretty. And it definitely wasn't. It wasn't very transferrable. Once you're kind of hooked yourself up for the day, you really don't want to have to take it off again. Over time, you know those the FM receivers got much, much smaller. 

I now use a unit that's about the size of my pointer finger. So tiny little unit now, and it's completely Bluetooth. I just plug it into the side of the computer with a tiny little cord and that's it. That's all I have to do now so I don't have to actually physically wear it on me anymore. I still wear my hearing aids, but the the connections are all done via Bluetooth now, which is out of this world. There's no more cords to get tangled up in, and and I have a lot more control over the device as well, so I'm able to turn it on and off. I don't need to be hearing conversations that teachers are having. 

So the technology for hearing has advanced incredibly. It's gotten a lot smaller, a lot more powerful, and it's gone from being corded analog technology to being wireless and Bluetooth digital technology. So it has come a long way. The hearing aids themselves have also decreased in size. So the ones that I wear now, if you put them next to the ones that I wore as a child, it's maybe a third of the size. So they've come down in size a lot, which makes them a lot easier to wear.

06:41 S3

I would imagine they'd be a lot more programmable as well, whereas before probably all you had was a volume control.

06:47 S2

Exactly. So originally I literally had a battery case on the back of them that you pull it open and change a little battery, which I used to change maybe once a week and and just a like a rolling volume control. So roll it all the way up or roll it all the way down. And it was... actually quite touchy as well. So if I bumped it with a hat or something, you know, my hearing aid setting would change. It's a lot more programmable. Now I have rechargeable hearing aids, so I pop them into a charge unit every night. I do get a good amount of battery when I consider that I can hook up a lot of devices to my hearing aids now. 

So I have my phone hooked up 24 over seven, because I actually use an app on my phone to control the programs on my hearing aids, and I can control things like... sound compression. So when I get to... volumes that are too loud for me or too out of my pitch, the hearing aids will automatically control that by either suppressing the sound or turning themselves off altogether. I've got different functions for if I'm in crowded areas, if I'm doing a one on one conversation, if I'm in a lecture hall with a teacher, I have different settings that I can use to really maximise what I'm hearing, make sure that the clarity is there for me, that...

08:05 S3

It really has come a long way, hasn't it?

08:07 S2

Yes it has. And I no longer have the issue of accidentally bumping that volume control and just being stuck with it until I see my audiologist again. Because when you reset it, it resets the volume.

08:20 S3

In terms of the visual technology. Would I be right in thinking that as your vision went, you had to transition from magnification to speech?

08:29 S2

Yes, you're 100%. I feel like I have sort of traversed the range of technology that people use when they are low vision, transitioning into total blindness. When I was first sort of starting to work in an office, I didn't need anything more than just a pair of glasses. I just wore some reading glasses to start with. I had tunnel vision at the time, so I started to need things like magnification. I used Zoom text. So I had a combination of magnification and audible when I needed it. So an audio input. 

I used various different types of hearing aid hookups as well with my phone and my computer, but primarily magnification in a lot of my accounting days was the way that I would access the computer, whether it was using the CCTV to access paperwork, whether it ended up scanning them into my computers, and then using Zoomtext to enlarge them. I've kind of transitioned through a lot of those technologies right through to now, where I am completely reliant on an audio or a Braille input, so I don't have any usable sight anymore.

09:36 S3

For a lot of people, that transition is really hard because most people want to try and hang on to doing things visually for as long as they can. As someone who's made that transition and done it, I must say very successfully, from what I've seen of your work and your work set up here. Do you have any sort of general advice for people on a transitioning from low vision to blindness, but b also dealing with the the hearing loss?

10:05 S2

Mm. That's a good question. And to me it was a couple of things that kind of worked together. I needed to change my perspective, my mindset. I was one of those people who didn't want to be a blind person. I to this day, I'm not really sure why that was an issue for me, but it was. I didn't really want to to kind of have to wear that label. And until I accepted that it wasn't a bad label, it was just a state of being. It wasn't a the core of my identity. It was just something that I was living with. It became much, much easier for me to go, okay, I'm not actually able to see that screen anymore. I really do need to be transitioning to a screen reader. 

So mindset, I would say it's at least half the battle for most people. Honestly though, it is a big barrier as far as transitioning the technology, my biggest suggestion would be try everything. You don't know what's going to work for you until you've tried it. I tried a variety of different things that didn't work for me, and I'm glad I kept trying different things to. I found a combination that actually worked for me. There's a lot of things out there. There's a lot of choices, and choices are amazing because it means that we can then find that unique combination that's going to work for us, and the condition that we're living with.

11:25 S3

And in terms of adapting to hearing loss... any any advice?

11:30 S2

It's about exploration. And honestly, your specialists are actually going to be your best friends in that exploration. For me, with my hearing loss, I am really good friends with my audiologist. I'm on a first name basis. We have phone numbers, we ring each other on a regular basis, and I found that rapport really important because it meant that I feel comfortable to tell my audiologist, hey, this isn't working for me anymore or I'm considering trying to do this with technology. 

S3

What suggestions do you have? What do you know is out there? 

S2

I often will trial prototypes for them because I do have complex needs, so I'm able to give them a really holistic view of what I think is useful in the technology and where I think some improvements can be made. So my my big suggestion is find your specialist, find your supports and really become friends with them. They are wanting to help you just as much as you need the support.

12:28 S3

Really good advice and and really powerful stuff. And I imagine it's the same in the IT space with the sort of the vision technology is, you know, exploring different solutions. Keep trying things and I guess evolve with the technology I imagine would be important to as, as as it changes and develops, you know, keep keep up with what's out there.

12:48 S2

Yes, absolutely. It's not something I'm very good at. I have to work. I have to push myself. But I have found so many benefits from just keeping up and asking questions. And hey, how do you do this when I'm, you know, grabbing a coffee and talking to a colleague and really kind of exploring what has emerged in the field because it is an emerging industry.

13:09 S3

It is, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

13:10 S2

It's constantly being developed all of the time.

13:13 S3

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when I look at the things in, in, at with respect to blindness and low vision that have changed even over the last 4 or 5 years, it's been absolutely massive.

13:23 S2

Oh, yes. Definitely. I almost can't keep up at this point. It's a full time job.

13:28 S3

Well, there's a really good podcast called Talking Tech that you might like to check out that helps keep keep you abreast of the latest technology. Hey, Kimberley, thank you very much for joining us on Talking Tech. It's been a fascinating discussion, and I have personally really enjoyed being part of your journey over the last few months. And you've taught me lots too. So thank you very much.

13:48 S2

No, thank you, and thank you for having me on to talk today.

13:52 S3

No problem.

13:53 S1

Kimberley Nean, a Vision Australia graduate program participant speaking late last year with Damo McMorrow. Wow. Before we go, a reminder for details of this and previous editions of the program. You can go to VA radio.org/talking tech, VA radio, dot org slash talking tech and to right to the program. You can email Damo McMorrow at Vision Australia dot org. Yes, he is keeping an eye on his inbox. damo.mcmorrow@visionaustralia.org ... 

This has been Talking Tech. Our guest has been Kimberly Nean, a participant of the Vision Australia graduate program, speaking with Talking Tech's Damo McMorrow. I'm Stephen Jolley. Take care. We'll talk more tech next week. See you.