Did you wear body aid while young?

I wore the body ones from K to 5th grade. I rarely wore them at home because I was embarrassed. I lost one of the body ear molds into bushes and Mom had to get another one.
 
drphil said:
The only thing I can remember about Hearing Aids then -was a large device fit into your ear with a tube going into a large device -guess microphone- and powered by a large battery which was carried in a shirt pocket.
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I've been asking around about this format but there is nobody seems to remember it. I think they existed for about a year as an interim between fully BW and fully BTE. The (massive!) BTE part did go over your ear but then there was a long string down from it and a thing you wore around your neck with the batteries hanging from it - no idea what sort of batteries that was the school's domain. It was a bit like the CIs for young children where they wear the processor on the ear and the batteries on a cord in a pocket, but not met anyone else who remembers them in hearing aids. They were around in the UK in about 1983, maybe only in Nottingham as there were a lot of experiments there. Maybe it was a power version of the BTE that could run from a single 675 battery?

I wore a BW-FM system with leads up to the hearing aids until... um... last year. :giggle:
 
Used to have the Advance Bonics S-serie platium processor which was the body processor before the BTE generation. Didnt mind it because I was too young to actually care, although the long wire did annoy me a lot some days i remeber
 
bbaseballboy123 said:
Used to have the Advance Bonics S-serie platium processor which was the body processor before the BTE generation. Didnt mind it because I was too young to actually care, although the long wire did annoy me a lot some days i remeber
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Imagine, I had to wear the body aids till I was 15! :)
 
sorry but i never experienced wearing that one...can anyone tell me what is it for?hehhe sorry again.
 
kokonut said:
Yep. I sure did. And then finally "graduated" to a newer hearing aid technology called Behind the Ear at about age 8 around 1974.

hearingaidkitid4.jpg

Image of box with old 1972 Zenith body aid, ear mold, Zenith membership card - 1972 and a button that says "Hearing Alert! Deaf Children Can Learn to Talk"

Loved that hearing aid. It enabled me to hear sounds and voices, and allowed me to get the neeeded audio feedback to hone my speech skills. Though I quickly grew fond with my new BTE hearing aid. Body aids throughout the 1970s rapidly fell out of favor for newer a BTE hearing aid technology. I'm sure after that no deaf/hh kid would want to be caught dead wearing a body hearing aid. Though in many cases it has served its usefulness. I am simply grateful that such a technology existed. Obviously it has benefitted me in more ways than one.
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Hi there, I'm new to AllDeaf.com and I'm not a spammer :cool2:

Like kokonut I began with a body aid provided by the NHS (UK). And like kokonut, it was around 1974-75 when I "graduated" to the BTE. Does anyone know if this was when BTE technology became widely available? Normally the NHS is a bit behind the times with HA technology.
 
AJWSmith said:
Does anyone know if this was when BTE technology became widely available? Normally the NHS is a bit behind the times with HA technology.
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I was given an early BTE in 1971, I believe that the NHS only made them available to children at the time.
 
AJWSmith said:
Hi there, I'm new to AllDeaf.com and I'm not a spammer :cool2:

Like kokonut I began with a body aid provided by the NHS (UK). And like kokonut, it was around 1974-75 when I "graduated" to the BTE. Does anyone know if this was when BTE technology became widely available? Normally the NHS is a bit behind the times with HA technology.
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Hearing Device Timeline

Here is an interesting timeline of various hearing devices.
 
I was borrn in the 40s and wore two body aids in a harness with cord going to recievers in both ears. I wore them for 30 years.
 
Hohtopics said:
I'm another that wore body aids back then when I was a kid during the 60's + 70's. Stopped wearing them when I was about 15.

That although I didn't know it at the time, however looking back, I think the body aids were probably more powerful than the BTE's were at the time, especially for the profoundly deaf...
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Lavender said:
I had my first ha's like this kind..
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My first hearing aid was a body aid, which I started wearing in about '67 or '68. When I started playing Little League in '73, I was forced to switch to BTE's, even though they were not as powerful.
 
My first hearing aids were Phonak BTEs at age 4, in the 80s. Never had a body worn hearing aid, though I have a Neptune speech processor now. It's so tiny compared to all of the pictures in this thread.
 
naisho said:
Did anyone ever wear the old hearing aids pre transistor/amplified electronics? Acoustic hearing amplification.

It would be interesting to hear your perspectives about how it was back then.
If any of you did, you got mad props and I give you salutations for being and old timer. . Those who used these kinds are the pioneers of all hearing devices and probably should be seen as the fathers of all hearing aids.

It was those devices like these:
oldhearingaid.jpg


MegaHearingAid.jpg



oldha.jpg


headbandhearingaid.jpg


hearingaid1.jpg


hearing-aid-7.jpg
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my uncle used one they awful but he was happy with it at the time,this going back to 1950' i use to see kids at clinic with them i saw kids fighting parents not to wear them..those days kids forced into oral and sign discouraged very cruel.
when i lost my hearing 1984 those things dying out but did see odd child with them poor kids had bag around chest wire attached,think they all in museums now
 
I think those were gone by the time I would have needed it (1996). My birth parents wouldn't have got me one anyway, or let the school give me one. They refused to but me aids or let the school.
 
Boy do I remember the body aid. Here is what I used probably back in 1974 time frame.

bodyaid.jpg


bodyaid.jpg
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I used a TELEX FM microphone/receiver body aid in class, from mid-late 1980s until I graduated high school in 1995. Outside of class, I used behind-the-hear hearing aids.

In the early 1980s, I used a different FM microphone/receiver body aid in class, but I don't remember the brand. It was a white colored box and larger than the TELEX. Anyone have an idea what brand/model that might have been?
 
I had one of those body hearing aids. I started out wearing those straps, but my mom got tired of the complications of hooking it up and unhooking it to take it off. So, she got me some overalls. She removed one of the back pockets and sewed it on to the chest part of the overalls so that I could easily slip in my hearing aid. This made things a lot... I mean... A LOT... easier. :)
 
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