Blog Archives

Touchable Ink: Now Laser Printers Can Print in Braille

4/27/2017

Still a work in progress, but it's promising.

A Braille printer can cost thousands of dollars. An ordinary laser printer can go for under $100. So Samsung took up the challenge of figuring out how to get a laser printer to produce documents in Braille, Geek.com reports.

Visually impaired people rely on the raised dots that form braille patterns to read using their fingers. So Samsung, working with the Thailand Association of the Blind and a chemistry professor at Thammasat University, figured out how to solve the problem by producing a new ink.

Touchable Ink is a laser printer ink that has had embossing powder added to it. It's simple to use: a Touchable Ink cartridge can be substituted for a normal one. Then the user changes the document's font to braille and prints the page.

Read the full story:

Deaf Culture at Harvard: Is ASL a Real Language?

4/26/2017

Students can now learn sign language, but it doesn't fulfill the language requirement.

At Boston University and Northeastern, students can fulfill their schools' language requirements by studying American Sign Language. But not at Harvard.

In an opinion piece in the Crimson, Harvard's venerable student newspaper, freshman David Lynch argues this week that ASL needs to be recognized and taught as a bona fide language.

The university's position is that this recognition depends on a language having a "written component."

"At its core," Lynch writes, "the purpose of language is communication and doubting a people’s language merely because one cannot 'write it' is fundamentally discriminatory. By instilling within students’ minds that ASL is a fun elective but not a legitimate language due to its failure to have a stereotypical 'written component,' Harvard is essentially claiming that those who use American Sign Language are not actually using language."

Read the full article:

"I Thought I'd Just Have to Live With It"

4/24/2017

"Anybody's got $3,000, hand it over."

In her watercolor class at her local senior center, Caroline Lewis couldn't hear the teacher's instructions.

"The teacher would say, 'I want you to make these three colors.' I'd hear two, but I wouldn't hear the other. I'd ask a neighbor, but you don't want to keep asking the same question over and over again. People make you feel like you're an idiot," she told us.

And it wasn't much better at home. On the phone, or in conversations with her daughters, she always had to get them to repeat. They'd tell her, 'Mother, you need hearing aids.' "

Caroline already knew that. Two years ago, she'd had a hearing test, and it confirmed that she really needed the devices.

Caroline's response? "Anybody's got $3,000, hand it over."

Read more:

Could This Heart Drug Also Save Eyesight?

4/20/2017

Study in the UK holds out hope.

The drug eplerenone is usually prescribed for treating chronic heart failure. Now a study at University Hospital in Southampton, UK, is showing that it may work for a currently untreatable eye condition, the website heart.co.uk reports.

Central serous chorioretinopathy (CSCR) is a type of macular degeneration that mainly affects people in their 30s and 40s. It occurs when fluid gathers under the retina and damages the tissue.

Professor Andrew Lotery, a consultant ophthalmologist at the hospital, says the study is important because many patients with the condition suffer permanent vision loss and there is no proven treatment for it.

"Recently, a small number of patients have responded to treatment with eplerenone and that is exciting, but information on the long-term benefit and safety is lacking, so we hope this landmark trial will establish the first scientifically proven therapy for CSCR,'' Lotery said.

Read the full story:

Grandmother Teaches Deaf Baby Sign Language

4/19/2017

At 2 months, she learns 'Grandma.'

Two-month-old baby Aria McMahon was visiting with her grandmother, Pamela McMahon, when they started practicing the word for “grandma” in sign language, Inside Edition reports.

Aria is completely deaf, and although she would ‘listen’ intently to signing, she hadn't used any signs herself.

Enter Grandma. With her help, Aria was able to practice moving her hand and signing the word herself.

Read more:

Bomb Squads Make Beeping Easter Eggs for Blind Kids

4/18/2017

Police departments across the nation work to let blind kids join the fun.

It happened last week in California, Kansas, West Virginia, New Mexico and many other locations. Police bomb squads used their expertise to create Easter eggs that gave off a sound like a smoke alarm.

In Bakersfield, blind and visually impaired children got a chance to hunt for Easter eggs with a little help from the Bakersfield Police Department bomb squad, NBC News reported.

More than 20 kids searched for the beeping eggs on Thursday, with officers serving as guides. The eggs were traded in for candy, popcorn and snow cones, and every child left with an Easter basket.

Read the full story:

Deaf College President Leads by Listening

4/17/2017

Once an outsider, she has found her niche.

It wasn't until graduate school that Jane Fernandes first encountered sign language.

Born deaf, she has been taught to speak, to lip-read, and to "pass" in the hearing world, the News & Observer of Raleigh, NC, reports.

Now, as president of the small but prestigious Guilford College in Greensboro, NC, she is popular among the students and is navigating difficult economic times.

“People are frankly inspired by her,” says Ed Winslow, a Greensboro lawyer who is chair of the college's Board of Trustees.

Fernandes grew up as one of a number of deaf family members; her mother was deaf from birth, and her brother was hearing impaired.
Her mother taught her to read lips and speak, rather than taking her to be taught with other deaf children.

Read the full story:

Deaf Dalmation Brings Joy to L.A. Hospital

4/13/2017

"Charlie will literally stare into the soul of our patients."

If you call out to Charlie the Dalmatian, he probably won't respond. "He's 100 percent deaf. We've done all the tests," Charlie's owner, Colleen Wilson of Hollywood, told ABC News.

Wilson adopted Charlie after he was abandoned at a shelter and scheduled to be put down. She speculates that his prior owners probably didn't realize he was deaf.

"When I first met him, he was jumping all over me, scratching me and biting my arms," Wilson said. Once she realized he was deaf, the two of them started to learn American Sign Language together. The trick, Wilson told KABC, is to get Charlie to look at you.

"I taught him the sign 'look at me' and from there I can go to sit, down, water, food, walk, car ride."

Most Dalmatians are usually too high strung for therapy work, but Charlie is different.

"Charlie will literally stare into the soul of our patients. He connects in a deeper way," said Erin Pickerel, who works with the Paula Kent Meehan Pawsitive Pet Program at Providence Saint John's Health Center.

Read the full story:

Legal High 'Poppers' May Damage Eyesight

4/12/2017

Club drug has worrying side effects.

New research suggests the popular legal high known as poppers might pose a danger to users' vision, U.S. News reports.

Poppers are colorless liquids with strong odors that users inhale to create euphoria and sexual arousal.

The principal chemical in poppers, isobutyl nitrite, was replaced with isopropyl nitrite after the first drug was reclassified as a cancer-causing agent in 2006.

But now there's a new problem, as British authors of a recent study reveal: eye problems have emerged as a side effect since the chemical composition of poppers has changed.

"The mounting body of evidence [suggests] that poppers can have serious effects on central vision," according to a team at Cheltenham General Hospital in the United Kingdom.

Read the full story:

North Carolina Legislature Passes Deaf Driver's License Bill

4/11/2017

Designation would be voluntary.

Legislators in Raleigh, NC, voted last week to approve a new system that would help law enforcement identify people who are deaf or hard of hearing, WRAL TV reports.

House Bill 84 would add a designation to a driver's license that the driver is deaf or hearing-impaired. The designation would also be added to the registration of any vehicle in that owner's name.

The identifier system would be completely voluntary. Deaf or hearing-impaired people would not be required to participate.

"This is to address concerns that many of us know about of people who've been injured, even killed, because someone did not realize they were hearing-impaired or actually deaf," explained Rep. Cynthia Ball, "so that the officer that stops that vehicle will have some advance information, perhaps, about the individual's impairment."

Ball was referring to an incident last year in which a deaf man was fatally shot by a state trooper in his own driveway after a short chase during which he failed to pull over as directed.

Read the full story:

How to Give

LEARN HOW...

How to Apply

FOR MORE INFO...

Success Stories

READ MORE...

Quick Links

Home
About
Contact

Donate
Programs
How To Qualify

BOARD MEMBERS LOG-IN

Contact Us

Tel: (800) 647-6638
Fax: (888) 958-7554

Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation
3450 East Spring Street, Suite 212
Long Beach, CA 90806

LSH is a charitable organization as designated by Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code, #95-2916098. Donations to LSH are tax-deductible.

Copyright 2009-2015 | Lions Sight & Hearing Foundation of Southern California | All rights reserved | Website by iTrust Marketing