Technology, Assistive

Pre-Assistive Technologies

Prior to the development of assistive technologies, deaf people often had to rely on family and friends to ensure they remained as alert as anyone else in their community. It is just such a reality that informs an old joke in the Deaf community, which tells the tale of a deaf coal miner who needs to wake up promptly at 5:00 am. As the story is told, a neighbor agrees to help the miner by tying to the miner’s foot a rope long enough to hang out the window. At 4:30, the neighbor drops by to tug on the rope and wake up the miner in time for work. One day, the miner tells a deaf friend about this arrangement, and his friend suggests a new method—attaching an old-fashioned wind-up clock to a heavy iron. As the deaf friend observes, when the alarm goes off, the iron will fall and the vibrations will wake up the miner. The miner adopts this method, and the shrill sound of the alarm clock turns out to be loud enough to wake up the entire village. As a result, the deaf man’s dilemma finds a solution that serves the entire community. While much has changed as electronic and digital technologies continue to open up new ways to create signaling devices that are not hearing-centric, the miner’s tale still resonates. It suggests, among other things, that the benefit of assistive technologies is universal and by no means limited to the Deaf community.

Types of Assistive Technologies

While there are now many different types of assistive technologies, among the most essential are those designed to alert people to danger in the event of a fire or gas leak. In this case, the vast majority of alarms include strobe lights. Strobes are also used in connection to other safety technologies (e.g., motion detectors and other home and workplace security systems). For non-emergency devices, LED lights often serve as an alert (e.g., there are now a variety of cell phone signalers that use LED lights to alert deaf cell phone users to incoming calls). While visual alarms work well in most cases, vibration-based assistive devices are also common for some household products (e.g., bedside alarms). While assistive devices for deaf individuals rely on visual and vibration-based signaling systems, for individuals with low levels of hearing, assistive devices often focus on amplifying or isolating sounds to make them more audible. However, such amplification devices are not a viable option for most people, and at times, these devices can reify hearing as a universal norm. Some of the most common types of assistive devices include the

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