Forget text-messaging. In future, phones will filter out extraneous noise to help hearing-impaired people to communicate better, according to a team of German scientists. [...] more »

DEAF people were given fresh hope last night after a woman became the first person in Britain to receive a single implant which brings hearing to both ears. [...] more »

They recruited both deaf and hearing signers, all of whom grew up signing with deaf parents. Each person sat in front of a monitor with a video camera ... [...] more »

In a Dispatches documentary to be shown on Channel 4 tonight, a British-born Pakistani woman tells how childhood deaths and deafness plagued her family ... Great Ormond Street said it was preparing to treat more children born blind or deaf, and genetic disorders such as cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anaemia, conditions which seriously affect people all their lives. Doctors said growing numbers of people from Asian countries such as Pakistan, where marriages between first cousins are more common, were expected to settle here. [...] more »

The university is receiving increased recognition for its unique range of academic programs, including science and technology, business, and design and the arts, combined with the outstanding programs of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. RIT is progressing to a position of even greater prominence in international higher education. [...] more »

Representatives from seven tribes will convene on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation Aug. 12 – 15 for the first hand talkers’ conference held since 1930. The conference is an important part of a National Science Foundation funded project led by Dr. Jeffrey Davis of the University of Tennessee, Dr. Melanie McKay-Cody (Chickamauga Cherokee/Choctaw) of William Woods University and James Woodenlegs (Northern Cheyenne) to document hand talkers from Northern Cheyenne, Assiniboine, Sioux, Crow, and several other tribes. The mission is to preserve Indian Sign Language through the cooperation of sign language linguists with deaf and hearing members of the North American Indian signing communities through research, video recording and a dictionary. [...] more »

He noted that empowering the deaf is one of the major roles of the University and is of immense significance in drawing the attention of other Universities ... [...] more »

A NORTH Melbourne product designer is a contender on the world stage for his invention that enables the deaf to feel sound. Swinburne University industrial design graduate Jack Allwood has created the Outer Ear, a non-surgical alternative to the cochlear implant and hearing aids. “It enables anyone to feel a knock on the door, a fire alarm sounding, a person calling out from behind,” Mr Allwood, 21, said. Working on a similar principle to a human eardrum, which receives and translates sound waves into signals that the brain can interpret, the device is worn between the wrist and the elbow on the inner forearm. [...] more »

Auckland University researchers have shown a potent new drug may reverse hearing loss caused by prolonged exposure to loud noise at work, at rock concerts, ... and more » [...] more »

Nicaraguan Sign Language, developed only 30 years ago by Deaf children in Nicaragua needing a way to communicate, offers insight to ways an adapted language affects thought processes. In a new study, which was published June 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, co-author Anna Shusterman, assistant professor of psychology explains how human spatial cognition depends on the acquisition of specific aspects of spatial language. [...] more »

Now, scientists say there is a way to restore hearing by re-growing inner ear hair cells. This breakthrough could lead to significant advances towards curing deafness and hearing loss in the future. [...] more »

Genetic researchers in Germany believe their research will lead to better ways to diagnose Usher syndrome. This condition causes up to ten percent of all cases of deafness in children and 50 percent of combined deafness and blindness in adults. [...] more »

For the parents of a deaf child, it would be advantageous to be aware of the retinal degeneration that will occur later on. "Research on new Usher genes ... [...] more »

Fingers are capable of learning and articulating entire languages, of which the sign language used by the deaf is only the most familiar example. As Trumble writes, human beings have always been prepared to let their fingers do the talking: [...] more »

Deep inside the ear, specialized cells called hair cells detect vibrations in the air and translate them into sound. Ten years ago, Stefan Heller, PhD, professor of otolaryngology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, came up with the idea that if you could create these cells in the laboratory from stem cells, it would go a long way toward helping scientists understand the molecular basis of hearing in order to develop better treatments for deafness. [...] more »