May is Speech & Hearing Month in Canada. It’s a time to shine a spotlight on communication health and the life-changing work of Speech-Language Pathologists and audiologists.

Many of us take communication for granted, but speaking, hearing, and being understood are essential to daily life. For those with communication challenges, even simple interactions can be difficult — impacting work, education, relationships, and overall well-being.

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Cheng is a senior consultant for a cross-cultural communications consulting firm, where his role involves facilitating focus groups, consultation sessions, and online interviews. He also works on-call as an interpreter. His hearing loss was making both roles difficult.

“I have difficulties with hearing pitch and tones of individuals who are speaking to me especially in noisy environments. I was finding that I can only hear part of the conversation or speech. As I need to take notes and interpret verbatim, it is very challenging when I am unable to hear the whole [conversation],” he says. He notes that he often can’t interrupt to ask for clarification, and the fact that much of his work takes place over video calls rather than in face-to-face meetings also makes it even more difficult.

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Today we are doing things a bit differently!

In our first-ever video episode we test the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of AI chatbots and research tools including ChatPDF, ChatGPT, AI Scholar, Google Scholar, and Claude. If you are looking for tips on how to research with AI more efficiently, then this episode is for you!

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Liam is currently obtaining work experience and looking for employment in the communications sector, while undergoing career training. He was motivated to switch careers because of an injury.

“I have a severe neck injury which makes getting to and from places very difficult, I am re-training so that I can find work from home or hybrid positions,” he shares.

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Studying with flashcards has always been an effective way of preparing for tests. And now that this approach to learning has been “virtualized,” students with different learning styles can be more easily accommodated. Not only that, but many of these apps offer extensive libraries of user-created quizzes that can be accessed for free.

Quizizz is a free flashcard app for browsers and iPad that has a lot of great learning content to offer within one program. In fact, the app offers so much that I would consider it to be more of a “virtual learning platform” than a simple flashcard app. Of course, the app does offer flashcards, but it also offers full lessons, assessments, passages, and interactive videos. And within each learning category there are thousands, sometimes even hundreds of thousands of activities to choose from.

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Douglas is employed as a Marine Field Research Scientist on Vancouver Island, working from small vessels conducting research on marine birds and their prey.

“Hearing loss requires me to use hearing aids in the field for safety reasons,” he shares.

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For students with dyslexia or other print disabilities, reading books and textbooks in the classroom can present a big barrier to their progress. However, audiobooks and other audio-based tools are a good way to mitigate these issues. Enter Learning Ally. This app/service was designed to offset print-based barriers by providing struggling readers with an alternative way to access curriculum content as well as a wide range of literature.

Learning Ally is an audiobook app that provides a large library of human-read textbooks, bestsellers, and classic literature. It provides built-in features such as highlighted text alongside audio narration, note-taking, bookmarking, speed control, and the ability to highlight any word or passage you want.

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Wilma works as a server at an assisted living facility for seniors. She takes orders from residents, and communicates meal adjustments to the kitchen. However, her hearing loss impacts her communication with residents, co-workers, and management.

Her audiologist referred her to WorkBC Assistive Technology Services to help fund the hearing aids she needs for work. Wilma applied and was quickly approved.

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As mind-mapping software is becoming more widely used, we have been seeing lots of new apps and features being added and integrated. Recently, we were made aware of a mind-map app that takes the model into an entirely new and very interesting direction.

ivvi Notes is an incredible combination of mind-mapping and note-taking. The app uses speech-to-map technology to transcribe live lectures and recorded audio or video directly into a mind-map format. If you’re like me and you’ve never heard of “speech-to-map” technology, that’s because the developers of ivvi trademarked this concept specifically for the app.

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Naida was looking for work in northern BC. However, she found that she was facing barriers — she is deaf in her left ear, and she also has hearing loss in her right ear. This makes meetings challenging, and she has trouble in noisy settings.

Through WorkBC Assistive Technology Services, Naida received funding for the hearing aids she needs for the job search process and future employment. “[It] helped tremendously, I would not have been able to receive hearing aids without the secondary help,” she shares.

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