8 — THE BULLETIN — Thursday. August 11,1994
HEARIN6 EXPERT Dr. Charles Laszio shows one of his Invsn-tions aimed at helping the hard of hearing.
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When a hard-of-hearing person goes to Dr. Charles Laszio for help, the person finds more than a sympathetic ear.
Laszio, a professor in UBC's department of electrical engineering and former head of the clinical engineering program, himself suffers from a profound hearing loss.
But the professor refuses to let his hearing loss be a barrier. Instead, he works to improve the lot of other hearing impaired people.
Dr. Laszio talked with The Bulletin recently about his own hearing problem and how he helps others deal with their loss.
Born in Budapest, Lasz-lo*s parents owned a factory that was nationalized during the Second World War. The family was deported to the countryside, where they survived for two years living in a forest. They also spent time in Budapest's Jewish ghetto.
Laszio deserted from the Hungarian army during the 1956 revolution and made
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his way to Canada. He landed a scholarship to study at McGill, graduating in 1961 with a bachelor of engineering.
It was during his university years that Laszio first began to notice a hearing decline. He attributes the loss to a bout with scarlet fever during the war.
Laszio worked at Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital Hearing Research Institute while undertaking graduate studies. He received a PhD in electrical engineering in 1968.
During a tour of North America, Laszio fell in love with Vancouver and vowed to return. In 1974, he got his chance when he was awarded the National Health Scientist Award, a prestigious grant to study biomedical computerization.
But the decision to come to UBC was not based entirely on Vancouver's beauty and-the grant.
"I had a problem with the separatist atmosphere in Quebec," the professor revealed. "I had been a second-class citizen in one country and I wasn't about to be one again."
And although Laszio spoke French, his hearing loss made it almost impossible to hear and understand French language inflections.
In his initial years at UBC, Dr. Laszlo's work focused on acute care medical engineering. In recent years, however, he has returned to working on hearing loss, inventing a number of devices for use by the hard-of-hearing.
One of his devices is called a Portable Infrared Communication System. About the size of an answering
1^
machine, the box is equipped with a microphone to pick up a visitor's voice and transmit the voice, via infrared signal, to a receiver
clipped to the user's tie. Dr. Laszio routinely uses
the gagdet, which sells for about $700, for both in-office and out-of-office contacts.
Another device is an ear piece that slips over the receiver to make any telephone hearing-aid compatible.
According to Laszio, founder and first president of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association, 70 of every 1,000 Canadians suffer some functionally significant hearing loss.
One in every 1,000 suffers from what Laszio terms "cultural deafness." This group prefers communicating via sign language, for example, rather than using hearing aids, the professor explained.
More than a half a million Canadians wear hearing aids, he disclosed, but four times that number should be wearing them.
"The reason they don't is simple," he declared to JWB. "There is a stigma in our society about wearing and using any kind of hearing aid."
Dr. Laszio makes a definite distinction between
those who are hard of hearing and those who are deaf.
Hard of hearing people, he clarified, use the spoken word as their primary means of communication. Deaf people use sign language.
The two groups have little in common, Laszio remarked, and face different problems. For instance, more than 10 years ago. Bell Telephone switched to hand receivers that were no longer hearing-aid compatible.
The change didn't matter to or affect deaf people. But the hard of hearing, with the UBC professor as their spokesman, spent more than a decade lobbying for change, taking the battle all the way to the federal government. Eventually the CRTCand telephone manufacturers reverted to a hearing-aid compatible system.
That fight is heating up once again. New digital cordless telephones.
heralded as the technology of the future, are not compatible with hearing aids.
And the professor is ready to do battle once more. "Anytime you make improvements for the hard of hearing, you make improvements for everyone."
In the meanwhile, Laszio is awaiting approval from UBC to develop the Institute for Hearing Accessibility Research. The centre would focus on all aspects of hard of hearing problems.
But for Dr. Laszio, being hard of hearing isn't a problem. He hasn't let his hearing loss impair his life. The only thing his loss has prevented him frorn doing is being able to take flying lessons and get a pilot's license.
His family—wife Doreen, a dentist, and two children aged 17 and 10 — have made all the necessary adjustments to life with a hard-of-hearing husband and father.
"My children learned at a very early age that they had to get my attention before I could hear them. By the time my son was three, he had learned to grab my nose and pull my face to his to get my attention," he laughed.
From Page 1
Katzs are adamant in their belief that PLO chairman Yasser Arafat has inforilia-
Students' Union became interested in the case, ICMIS organizer Kagan explained to The Bulletin. lion on the whereabouts of The coalition consists of a
their sons.
"As a sigii of good faith, he [Arafat] should tell us what he knows about the boys," Miriam Baumel declared.
The families, and the International Coalition for the Missing Israeli Soldiers (ICMIS), have asked the Israeli government to pressure Arafat, but to no avail.
"Despite promises, we don't believe the government is sympathetic to our cause," Baumel noted sadly.
ICMIS also asked the Israeli government to slow the peace process until Arafat produced some information on the missing soldiers. But the families were disappointed when, in the spring, the government decided to keep the peace process moving ahead without leaning on Arafat for clues.
"Being ignored by the government hurt," remarked Baumel.
Citing an Israeli poll, she declared that more than 87 percent of the Israeli public favor halting the release of Palestinian prisoners until Arafat provides information on the MIAs.
Last February, Baumel was in Ottawa where she met with parliamentarians and asked for their help to seek release for the Israeli MIAs. Toronto Liberal MP Joseph Volpe hosted a lunch for Baumel, attended by almost two dozen sympathetic MPs.
She has also met with members of the U.S. Congress who had visited Syria to look into the matter.
The International Coalition for the Missing Israeli Soldiers was formed in September 1993 when the Israeli
core group of four volunteers, said Kagan, who acts as social action co-chair. There are another 30 regular volunteers, and a further 200 "on call."
The coalition, which has no paid staff, works out of a small office in the centre of Jerusalem.
Kagan's and Baumel's visit to Vancouver was part of a three-week swing through Canada and the U.S. in search of funds and publicity for their cause. Other North American stops included Winnipeg, New York, Chicago, Toronto and Montreal.
The journey was not a new one for Baumel. "I've been doing this for 12 years, and by now, I'm an experienced traveller and speaker," she declared. "I make two or three trips a year to North America and Europe."
The message Baumel is bringing to North America is two-fold: First, we want the Jewish communities here to pressure Arafat to release the MIAs. "Second, the Baumels, Feldmans and Katzs need donations to continue their fight to obtain their sons' release.
"Travel all over the world, office expenses, telephone and fax bills — they all need to be paid for," said Baumel.
Non-tax deductible donations to the International Coalition for the Missing Israeli Soldiers can be made by writing Miriam Baumel at 22/6 Bayit Vegan Street, Jerusalem P.O.B. 3137.
written copy ill not be accepted,