Somerset, NJ October 25 - Super power heroes capture young imaginations and give children the courage to take on new adventures and challenges with confidence. For children with severe-to-profound hearing loss, the newest super power hero comes in a sleek, modern design and sits comfortably on their ears. Meet Safari Super Power (SP), the newest member of Oticon's Safari family of hearing solutions designed exclusively for children. In true super hero style, Safari SP comes equipped with high quality components to deliver the 24/7 reliability essential for children with severe-to-profound hearing loss who rely on their hearing instruments through all their waking hours, New Safari SP goes where no super power instrument for young people has gone before. Unlike conventional super power instruments that may sacrifice speech resolution to obtain the necessary audibility, Safari SP is designed to provide not only audibility but also higher signal fidelity to preserve the speech signal in its most natural and undistorted form that children with severe-to-profound hearing loss need.
"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, Ph.D., Au.D., Manager of Oticon Pediatrics. "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 also opens an exciting world of connectivity to young people with severe-to-profound hearing loss. Effortless wireless connection to TVs, PCs, mobile phones and mp3 players is now possible through Oticon's Streamer and the ConnectLine system that stream audio directly to the child's hearing instruments. Now, perhaps for the first time, children and teens with severe-profound hearing loss can 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 use the 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.
The sturdy Safari SP features a full-body nano-coating and internal deep coating designed to repel water, sweat and dirt.
For more information on fitting severe-profound hearing loss and the new Safari SP, visit oticonusa.com or contact pediatrics@oticonusa.com. You may also visit the Oticon web channel on AudiologyOnline.
