Auditory needs
Auditory needs
Introduction
People will have different degrees of a hearing impairment. Profoundly or severely deaf people may rely on hearing aids and lip-reading/speaking, whilst others will struggle with noisy environments.
A hearing impairment can include things like finding issues with background noise through to side effects of medicines.
11 million people in the UK are d/Deaf or hard of hearing. You can
Examples of hearing impairments
The following table lists examples of hearing impairments in three columns (permanent, temporary and situational).
Permanent | Temporary | Situational |
---|---|---|
Deaf (little to no hearing) | Ear infection | Background noise (noisy office) |
Hard of hearing (mild to severe hearing loss) | Medicine side effects (such as for neonatal infections, malaria, cancer) | Noise-cancelling headphones (to counteract noise) |
Exposure to loud noises | Poor quality audio |
Making things accessible
Make sure any audio has little to no background noise.
Subtitles and transcripts
Make sure any audio information is available in text.
For all audio content (including videos with audio) you must provide
Don't rely on automated subtitling and transcription because it might be inaccurate. Always check any automated subtitles and transcripts for accuracy.