Assistive listening symbol (ear)

How to read it

The symbol is an ear with a bar diagonally across it, which the US ADA Standards call the International Symbol of Access for Hearing Loss. Under the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, assembly areas that must provide assistive listening systems must also post signs saying so, and those signs must carry this symbol. The Graphic Artists Guild says the systems transmit amplified sound via hearing aids, headsets or other devices, and Stanford University’s guide names the kinds: infrared, loop and FM systems.

Also searched as: assistive listening system symbol, ear symbol, ear with line through it, hearing loop symbol, hearing loss symbol, International Symbol of Access for Hearing Loss.

Why the Canadian Association of the Deaf rejects it

The Canadian Association of the Deaf rejected the slashed ear in 1990, and says it persuaded the World Federation of the Deaf, which had approved the symbol, to withdraw its support in 1991. Its reasons: the symbol doesn’t distinguish between the needs of Deaf people and hard of hearing people, so a sign meant for assistive listening misleads Deaf people looking for sign language interpretation; the slash makes hearing loss read as a defect, “can’t hear”, where other access symbols show what people can use; and children misread it, Deaf children as “No Deaf people allowed” and hearing children as “No listening allowed”. The association supports symbols for each specific service instead.

Look-alikes

The sign language interpretation symbol, two signing hands, is the one the Canadian Association of the Deaf says Deaf people look for. A volume control telephone has its own symbol, a handset with sound waves, and a text telephone has the TTY symbol.