Hearing

[download id=”10″] (USFA 1999 PDF 302 kb)

People who are deaf or have hearing impairments, those who are blind or have vision impairments, and those with mobility impairments may face unique challenges in an emergency. Their ability to detect a fire or escape its effects may be hindered by their impairments. As a result, people with these impairments are at a greater risk of death or injury due to fire.

[download id=”11″] (OSU 2011 PDF 25 kb)

Recent studies of the wakefulness of different alerts conclude that a strobe light is not effective in waking hard of hearing adults or young adults who are moderately alcohol impaired. There is no study to confirm this finding with adults who are deaf.
These recent studies indicate that a tactile alert device (bed shaker) is effective in waking adults who are hard of hearing and that a square wave lower frequency sound is effective in waking these adults as well as young adults who are moderately alcohol impaired.

[download id=”13″]s (University of Maryland, 2007, PDF 1.1 mb)

The study presented measures the awakening effectiveness of a number of commercially available emergency alerting devices. Three groups of varying hearing levels were tested: hearing able, hard of hearing, and deaf. The devices evaluated are a typical
audible smoke detector, a strobe light, and a bed shaker. The subjects were monitored for sleep stage during the single night tests and the emergency alerting devices were activated in Stage 2, Delta and REM stages of sleep.

Results indicate that the audible smoke detector was most effective for the hearing able population and least effective for the deaf population. The recommended alternative to the audible smoke detector, the strobe, was the least effective device when measured
against the total United States population. The vibratory tactile devices were most effective across all hearing categories and sleep stage. When the tactile signal of the bed shaker was modified to vibrate intermittently, all persons were effectively aroused.

[download id=”12″](Oklahoma State University 58kb)

Plain language ensures that your audience can understand not only the technical terms
and concepts but also the directions and descriptions you provide. Writing in a concise
form with an emphasis on the most important information will help your audience
understand your meaning and engage more fully in the concepts.