Sonic Innovations hearing aids are a passionate company when it comes to helping the hearing-impaired navigate their way through different sounds, including the human voice. This company specializes in digital hearing aids and the smaller the better. The Sonic Company just released their tiniest in-ear hearing device ever and it’s loaded with sound technology. The Touch was an honoree at the 2010 International Consumer Electronic Show in the Best of Design and Engineering category.

Starkey hearing aids began as one person, William Austin who fixed hearing aids in St. Louis Park, Minnesota in 1967. In 1971, Austin purchased a small laboratory called Starkey from Mr. Starkey himself, the lab produced small earmolds and Mr. Starkey continued to help out and the name remained the same. The first 90-day trial period was introduced in 1973 and a one year ‘worry-free’ warranty was also issued. With hearing aid production growing rapidly, the Starkey Company expanded overseas, first to England, then to Germany. They opened other manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Canada. In 1978, the Starkey Fund began as a battery recycling program.

These two hearing aid companies each take hearing loss to be a serious medical condition and strive to help those affected by its devastation. The loss of hearing means the loss of communication unless the hearing-impaired person and others know ASL – American Sign Language and many people who lose their hearing later in life already have a voice in place so they don’t want to be confused with deaf people who can not speak clearly mainly because they can not hear themselves talk.

People often wonder how a person hears and what could go wrong to cause them not to hear. There are three parts to hearing; the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer ear collects sounds from the surrounding environment and sends them down to the middle ear. 

The middle ear uses vibrations (off the eardrum) and three small bones – malleus, incus and staples – to process sound into the inner ear.

In the inner ear, which has two main parts, the cochlea and the vestibular system; tiny hair cells send impulses to the auditory nerve, then it travels to the brain for final processing of the sound.