Department of Justice Proposes Changes in ADA Title II and Title III Regulations : Your Comments Needed

The Department sought input concerning the actual costs and benefits of assistive listening systems (ALS). ALS are essential to ensure participation and integration of individuals with hearing loss. Because the RIA did not adequately account for the non-monetized factors discussed below, the benefits would in fact be far greater than that analysis predicts. We thus urge the Department to adopt the 2004 ADAAG provisions relating to ALS as drafted without raising it with the Access Board.

Comment: Benefits of Assistive Listening Systems

Assistive listening systems (ALS) are vital to people with hearing loss. They provide access in a way no other system provides: they allow someone who has lost a significant amount of their hearing to hear music, voice, and sounds once again. Many people with hearing lost have reported that they had despaired of ever attending a large pubic event again, or even a meeting of more than 10 people, but that they have rejoined their community and had access to events with friends and family once again because they found they could use ALS. ALS are effective communication “ramps” for people with hearing loss. ALS allows people with hearing loss to access programs and services otherwise inaccessible. An ALS is not a luxury to a person with a hearing loss: it is an appropriate and effective way to provide communication access.

ALS are hugely important to, and provide substantial benefits to people with significant hearing loss. When a person has a significant hearing loss, that person may be able to hear and understand information on a one to one basis in a quiet situation with the use of a hearing aid. It becomes progressively more difficult to communicate and understand, with or without the use of a hearing aid, when 1) the background noise increases 2) the distance increases between the listener and source of the sound. (e.g., a person speaking or music being played), or 3) there is distortion of the source of the sound, for example if there is reverberation or poor acoustics. People with hearing loss are significantly less able to filter out background noise in a way that people who can hear can do in noisy situations, so they need additional electronic help (like listening systems) do to so.

Public address systems do not help people with hearing loss in the same way they help people who don’t have a hearing loss. The signal from a public address system is sent through a room that may well be noisy, produces echoes, is acoustically dismal, or the signal itself is of such poor quality to be rendered unintelligible. People with “normal” hearing may have trouble understanding the words from a distorted public address system, but people who have a significant hearing loss find it virtually impossible to do so. Such a system is useless to someone with a hearing loss. In a facility using only a public address system, a person with a hearing loss will not have access to that program.

There are currently an estimated 31 million Americans with hearing loss. For many people with hearing loss, assistive listening systems are the most appropriate choice to access programs, events and services. In addition, considering the numbers of returning veterans with hearing loss (the Department of Veterans Affairs reports that at the end of fiscal year 2003, disabilities of the hearing system including hearing loss was the “third most common type of disability among compensated veterans” J. Durch &L. Humes, Military Medical Technology, March, 2008), our aging population, and our noisy society, it is anticipated that even larger numbers of Americans will develop hearing loss: an estimated 78 million by 2030. (Newsweek, March, 2005)

If the 2004 ADAAG standards are not adopted for assistive listening systems, large numbers of Americans who have a hearing loss and who find assistive listening systems the one way they can access programs and services, will find these programs and services inaccessible for years to come.

The 2004 ADAAG provides an additional huge benefit to people with hearing loss by setting standards for neckloops: a hearing aid compatible coupling device that allows people who wear hearing aids to use their hearing aids to the best advantage. People who use hearing aids and can use neckloops have often found that they cannot use the receivers provided by facilities. This is a huge benefit for people with hearing loss with at a minimal cost for facility owners: the neckloop cost approximately $50.00 each.

The RIA did not account for these benefits

The Regulatory Impact Analysis described the benefits from the 2004 ADAAG provisions addressing ALS as follows: “Time saving in using assistive listening systems with technical specifications compared to learning about what may have been missed if not heard; assumes this applies mostly to lectures and public speaking, not music (which if not heard the whole experience may be lost).” RIA at 266. We assert that time saving is not the primary way that listening systems are beneficial to people with hearing loss for the following reasons:

Time savings using listening systems assumes that people with hearing loss attend programs and services to simply receive information presented. Presumably, the time saved is the time the person did not have to wait to receive written copies of that program. This assumes such information is provided at all. In fact, it is often difficult or impossible to receive such a script. If there are impromptu or unscripted portions of the event, those portions could be left out entirely.

People with hearing loss who use listening systems, like other people who attend programs and get access to services, do not simply use the systems to receive information. They do it so they can fully participate in the event. For example, individuals with hearing loss who attend town hall meetings of their local, state and federal government representatives report that not only is the issue one of listening to what their representatives are saying, but being able to respond to and provide input to what they have heard there. If no assistive listening system is in place, people with hearing loss will not understand all that is being presented. That means they get only a piece of the information provided, but it also means that they cannot contribute their own experience and input on the spot during the time given for community questions and comments.

When assistive listening systems are not in place, many people with hearing loss decide that they will not even attempt to attend important community events, because they believe it will not be a successful experience for them if they cannot hear and participate. Not only does the individual lose out on important information, but he community loses when one less citizen does not become involved, provide information and experience on the issues at hand, and get to know their community representatives better.

There have been many situations in a courtroom setting where the judges show little patience for someone who cannot hear the proceedings. That person, without a listening system available, cannot provide council with the best information in their own defense. Even if a transcript is provided later, the issues may be decided well beyond the time that it is important. For example, we know of a case of the settling of an estate where misinformation was provided to the court by one side in the dispute. The hard of hearing participant in the estate settlement didn’t find out until much later, costing not only time, but money, because she had to engage the lawyer to dispute the information, cost the court’s time in hearing the case one more time, and cost the other party time and money in attending court one more day. The 2004 ADAAG has properly included courtrooms in their standards, with or without a public address system for those reasons.

In places of public accommodation, an assistive listening system may be the only way the communication barrier can be overcome. At a concert, the time involved in not receiving the accommodation cannot even be considered: having the lyrics presented later does not solve the problem of access when a person seeks to hear and enjoy music. The person with hearing loss who benefits from an assistive listening system needs that system in place to hear and fully enjoy music at the time it is taking place, not before and certainly not later.

Assistive Listening Devices: Costs

The 2004 ADAAG scoping requires fewer receivers than previously required for larger facilities at significant cost savings to facility owners yet retaining adequate access for people with hearing loss.

Removing the fixed seating requirement from the original rule will alleviate a great deal of confusion and will ensure communication access in situations that would otherwise not have been covered by the rule, such as hotel ballrooms and dinner clubs.

Specifically:

The Department indicates that the cost of compliant receivers would be $500 more than non-complaint receivers. We believe that for existing facilities, the cost could be significantly less. Some facilities already have hearing aid compatible headsets. Some facilities already have receivers and neckloops in place. Other systems may have receivers with a plug that will accept a neckloop. For those facilities, it will cost approximately $50.00 to purchase one neckloop.

The Department makes no mention of the cost of retrofitting instead of purchase of new equipment. For example, the Kennedy Center purchased stethoscope-style receivers which had no input for a jack, so no way to accept a neckloop. They returned those to the manufacturer to have a jack installed. These receivers now successfully work with neckloops they provide for their shows. While we believe that retrofitting is not the best option for creating accessibility, it is yet another way that facilities can find ways to reduce the costs of compliance without sacrificing accessibility for the large numbers of people with hearing loss who wish to attend, understand and participate fully in programs, events and services.

The 2004 ADAAG rules also note that induction loop systems may be installed. When facilities choose to install an induction loop to come into compliance, no hearing aid compatible receivers are required, again significantly reducing the overall cost of the system to facilities.

In addition, we note that the 2004 ADAAG standards reduce the scoping for these receivers significantly for large facilities. Under the new scoping, only 25% of receivers would need to be hearing aid compatible. This too is a cost saving.

We see many costs savings for facility owners under the 2005 ADAAG rules. We believe ADAAG properly weighed the cost and benefits of assistive listening systems for both facilities and people with hearing loss.