How to Help the Hard of Hearing at Church this Holiday
The messages given at holiday services are special and thematic. It is especially important that the sermon be heard plainly by everyone, including any new guests who may like to return throughout the year. Your house of worship may be wondering, how can we help hard-of-hearing patrons in church?
Because there are more people in attendance, there is also a lot more ambient noise with people shuffling feet or moving around on their seats, coughing and sneezing, children talking and being shushed. Even for people without hearing loss, this makes it hard to hear the speakers making announcements and the minister preaching a sermon. For people who do have hearing impairment it becomes even more challenging to pay attention if they are missing every other word.
Aging adults and the hearing impaired may find it disappointing when they can’t fully engage in church services. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders states that about 15% of adults of all ages and backgrounds have degrees of hearing loss or trouble hearing. In fact, NIDCD estimated that 28.8 million adults in the U.S. might benefit from using hearing aids. Your house of worship could achieve the ability to amplify sound to elder or hearing impaired members without disturbing the experience of your other members by using assistive listening devices for churches that transmit audio directly to a smartphone.
You may also have parishioners attending holiday services whose first language is not English and who wish to understand everything that is said. You may choose to have a translator. This way, all parishioners are together to enjoy the special service and understand it. An audio streaming solution that transmits audio directly to a user’s smartphone, can offer a house of worship the opportunity to offer translation of the service into one language without disturbing the other congregation members who speak the other language.
It’s easy to overcome these issues and allow everyone to adequately hear these special holiday services and offer translation by using a streaming audio system from AudioFetch. Contact us to find out more about how you can more easily reach the ears of your entire congregation.