AKRON, Ohio — A group of University of Akron and Kent State University students pursuing a doctoral degree in audiology are making masks with a clear vinyl opening at the mouth to make it easier for people with hearing loss to understand what the other person is saying, according to News 5 media partner The Akron Beacon Journal.
The clear masks are “a fantastic way to engage the students in a project that could benefit our patients once the students returned to the clinic,” said Erin Miller, the coordinator of the Northeast Ohio AuD Consortium program run by both universities with the Cleveland Clinic.
Recent reports have shown masks reduce the high-frequency sounds, which make speech clearer for the listener.
Megan Fuller, a third-year student working at a medical office, said she started talking to Miller about how students would be able to help their patients while wearing a mask.
“People all the time are saying it’s really hard to hear through this mask. We just don’t realize how much we rely on those visual cues day to day. A lot of people are struggling, whether they have hearing loss or not, masks are a challenge,” she told the Akron Beacon Journal.
Fuller, who is the president of the local chapter of the Student Academy of Audiology, found a Facebook post from a group in Kentucky who were sharing plans for making masks with a clear opening.
Using some of the group’s funds, she bought materials and dropped them off at her classmates’ front doors, where everyone started sewing.
In total, the group will make about 100 masks, enough for all the doctoral audiology students in the four-year program.
The group attached instructions on how to make the masks here.
Read the full article by The Akron Beacon Journal here.
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