Let's Loop America!

Induction loops are becoming common in many European countries. People in these countries routinely switch their hearing aids to Telecoil when they enter a public facility, because so many of them are looped.

Now there's a growing movement in the US to greatly expand the installation of loops in public places. Led by Dave Myers, the movement is rapidly gaining momentum!

April 2002 - Let's Loop America! That's the battle cry of an organization called Hearing Loop. Here's some information about them and their wonderful idea to loop the whole country!

July 2002 - We've been following David Myer's project to loop his hometown for awhile, and we were privileged to attend his SHHH workshop entitled "Let's Loop America".

September 2002 - Here are a few words from David Myers regarding progress in looping America (and Europe).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Word from the Organizer of "Let's Loop America"

Editor: We've been reporting on David Myer's "Let's Loop America" program for over a year now, and the momentum is building. Here are excerpts from his recent email reporting progress. For more information on this wonderful program, point your browser to http://www.hearingloop.org.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I received [your email] here in Scotland where I'm on a working holiday, and where I've seen signs indicating loop systems not only in churches, auditoriums, and the like, but also now at a Tourist Information Center counter, a pharmacy, at a grocery store checkout counter, and at the post office (often with one window or lane designated as looped). Clearly, the effort to loop Britain is succeeding in a very comprehensive way.

And we're underway in America. This month's issue of The Hearing Review, which goes to 20,000+ hearing professionals, offers telecoil/loop-supporting articles by audiological researcher-writer Mark Ross (who is surely one of God's gifts to hard of hearing people) and myself. More articles are in the works with Hearing Loss (the SHHH magazine), Sound and Video Contractor (for the folks who sell and install hearing assistance systems), and Scientific American.

As my own community is becoming widely looped, our audiologists have responded by including telecoils ("audio coils," Mark Ross and I think they should be renamed) in new hearing aids. The owner of our largest audiologist practice tells me that they're including T-coils in more than 90 percent of new hearing aids. Obviously, this helps create a positive feedback loop: Looping the community provides a reason for new hearing aids to all have T-coils which amplifies the expectation and wish that all community facilities be looped. Most major churches are now looped, but the few that aren't surely will soon feel the need to become so . . . and our work will be essentially finished in our town.