Right now, I am looking around for a new digital hearing aid My old digital hearing aid is about 9 or 10 years old. With the technology today I suspect digital hearing aids are much more superior than the ones 10 years ago when it first came out. Sure, a digital hearing aid is expensive but it’s about investing in a hearing aid that will assuredly give back many times more. My old one cost about $2300 about 10 years ago. That’s $230 a year (and dropping as I continue to use it) or about $20 a month. This doesn’t include the two or three earmolds that were made over the 10 years, batteries bought or the one time repair a few years back costing me about $260.00. My hearing aid is a still bargain since it has allowed me to interact with hearing people whether in person or over the phone without much problems in terms of doing business and arranging things. The idea is the same if you think about buying a UbiDuo communication device will it, over time, pay you back in terms of time, resources and better job performances in your line of work if you deal with hearing people on a constant basis. The spells out greater opportunities for advancement and improved career performances.
"Sticker shock" is a problem for a lot of people when all they see is the price tag of a hearing aid, a car, the cost of college education or even the cost of the UbiDuo communication device. What people need to factor in is the potential return of their investment, so to speak. They need to learn to look past the cost and consider over time how such a device, a transportation system or an education can help your recoup your cost over time.
Getting my graduate degree which set me back about $35,000 through two loans just for a two year’s worth of education and housing for a family of three and then four. The loans were paid off within 5 years after getting my graduate degree. But my graduate education took me three years with an additional 2 more years of my education as part of the Student Career Experience Program (SCEP) where I continued with school as a fulltime student in order to be eligible in the program. Thereby earning enough credits for two degrees! So, what's the point here? Well, I saw graduate education as an investment opportunity. For who you may ask? Well, myself. I invested in myself. Who better to invest than yourself? Think about that.
Still, we see the narrow thinking from those who balk or even complain about the price tag for attending Gallaudet University. Many see it being as “too expensive” rather than an “investment opportunity” instead. The cost of attending Gallaudet University is approximately $12,000 a year (or about $15,000 if you include summer semester) for a total of about $50,000 to get a bachelor degree in four years. Although a good majority of the students take 5 to 6 years to complete a 4 years college program at Gallaudet University, increasing their educational cost already. People who balk or complain about the price tag usually do not see it as an investment opportunity for themselves and rather than a stepping stone that could potentially lead to a better paying job/career afterwards or higher learning on getting their masters or doctorate degrees that could spell even better job opportunities.
Now, let’s go back to my hearing aid search. I have heard about digital hearing aids that have built in “artificial intelligence” software allowing it the ability to help discriminate certain sounds and screen out unwanted ones. This type of feature would be extremely important for me whenever I attend meetings with several people or in large crowds dealing with loud background noises. The ability to understand speech in virtually any situation is my top priority for me as a working professional in the field of science. Currently I am looking at Oticon “Syncro” hearing aid for hearing loss in the moderate to severe range. I’m especially interested in one where I can control the volume. My old one controls the volume automatically by detecting surrounding loudness that goes up and down. Not really that good in meeting situations if loudness of speech goes up and down, especially when people make jokes do they laugh loud and then start talking normally, I’d have to wait until my hearing aid’s volume go up again so I can hear them talking in a normal voice. Also, not really that great listening to music whenever a music piece gets loud does my hearing aid turns down the volume. It is also maddening when that happens if I play the piano, too.
Looks like I’ll have to do some more shopping around and ask my audiologist about which hearing aids would best fit me using today’s artificial intelligence software. It’s time to invest in another digital hearing aid.
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