Use of micro-controller in a tactile aid for the hearing impaired

An entirely wrist worn vibrotactile aid for the profoundly hearing impaired has been developed making use of a micro-controller to reduce size and increase flexibility. The purpose of the device was to provide assistance with lip-reading and awareness of environmental sounds. Two speech feature coding strategies were selected based on previous experiments. The micro-controller was used to implement these strategies in the device. The use of a micro-controller significantly reduced the number of components required and enabled the whole device to be realised in a cosmetically acceptable unit. Five profoundly hearing impaired subjects tried the devices over a period of twelve weeks. They reported the device was useful for general awareness of environment sounds but gave no help with lip-reading.