Somerset, NJ – Super power heroes capture young imaginations and give children the courage to take on new adventures and challenges with confidence. That’s the theme behind Oticon’s new Safari Super Power (SP) for children with severe-to-profound hearing loss.
New Safari SP goes "where no super power instrument for young people has gone before," says Oticon’s press release. That statement refers to the Safari SP being designed to provide not only audibility, but also higher signal fidelity to preserve the speech signal in its most natural and undistorted form, a needed benefit for children with severe-to-profound hearing loss.
“Children with severe-profound hearing loss need access to as many sounds as possible. The negative consequences of traditional compression on important speech cues can limit a child’s ability to function in dynamic sound environments such as the classroom, sports field or playground,” says George Lindley, PhD, AuD, manager of Oticon Pediatrics, in the press statement. “The child-friendly Safari SP is engineered to amplify sound to achieve sufficient loudness and at the same time, to deliver the amplitude and temporal speech cues children with severe-to-profound hearing loss need to better understand speech, allowing them to interact more naturally and participate more actively in life’s everyday adventures.”
To ensure clear and consistent auditory input, Speech Guard keeps speech sounding natural while providing optimum intelligibility. Speech Guard encompasses the benefits of linear and non-linear amplification without the pitfalls of either. By applying Floating Linear Gain, Speech Guard protects the amplitude-envelope of speech while still providing an audible signal.
Safari SP is also designed with connectivity solutions. The system includes Oticon’s Streamer and the ConnectLine system, which provides a wireless connection to TVs, PCs, mobile phones and mp3 players that stream audio directly to the child’s hearing instruments.
The new SP abilitys allow children and teens with severe-profound hearing loss to chat on mobile and landline phones with friends and grandparents, enjoy TV with the family and get more enjoyment from online gaming.
Safari SP instruments can also use a dedicated Amigo R12 ear-level receiver or universal receivers from Oticon and other manufacturers. The new Amigo Arc neckloop receiver is another attractive FM option for children, especially those with bi-modal fittings. Similar to all of the child-friendly hearing solution in the Safari family, Safari SP features an LED status indicator that lets parents, teachers and coaches know that the instrument is on and set to the correct program.
In addition to its communication features, the Safari SP features a full-body nano-coating and internal deep coating designed to repel water, sweat and dirt.
SOURCE: Oticon
