Toronto Rehabilitation Institute
A small (4 cm long), curved electronic device designed to fit behind the helix (outer rim) of the ear. It consists of two primary parts: A transparent, slightly flesh tinted curving canal called an ear hook, and an electronics enclosure. The ear hook is attached to the enclosure by a threaded connection.
This example includes a cable that attaches to a three-pin port at the bottom of the enclosure.
The plastic electronics enclosure is in colour, with a darker brown plastic used for the controls and the battery door.
Accession Number: 2025.rehab.25
Alternative Name:
Primary Materials: Plastic
Markings:
Height = 3.5, Width = .8; Length = 4; Length of cord = 32.
A hearing aid is a device designed to amplify sound so that it is audible to a person with hearing loss.
A behind the ear (BTE) hearing aid is a type of electronic hearing aid that locates the electronics enclosure behind the helix (outer rim) of the ear. In this format of BTE hearing aid, sound is transmitted through a tube to an ear mould that matches the user’s ear canal.
This artifact is in good cosmetic condition, though it may be incomplete. It seems to lack a battery camber so may be missing a second component.
Associated Instruments:
Manufacturer: Unknown
Date of Manufacture: c. 1990s
This artifact was among a number artifacts related to audiology and optometry collected from the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute at 130 Dunn Avenue on December 6, 2017.
Mills, Mara. “Hearing Aids and the History of Electronics Miniaturization.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 33, no. 2 (2011): 24–45.
Virdi, Jaipreet. Hearing Happiness : Deafness Cures in History. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020.
Virdi, Jaipreet. “Deaf Futurity: Designing and Innovating Hearing Aids.” Medical Humanities 50, no. 4 (2024): 678–84.
The “behind the ear” (BTE) format of electronic hearing aid first emerged in the late 1950s. The small format was made possible by the development of transistors. integrated circuits, and button cell mercury batteries.
Design Considerations
Disability scholars have analyzed such devices for values that their design embodies. Virdi 2024 gives a good overview of this discussion and cites its many contributors. For some, the process of miniaturization, the standardized, medicalized aesthetic of flesh-coloured devices and clear earpieces, embodies the a social stigma surrounding deafness–a stigma not seen, for instance, in corrective eyewear, which is, by nature, more visually intrusive yet is commonly viewed as a fashion accessory. The discrete, medicalized aesthetic of hearing aids has, in recent years, been challenged by disabled designers who have modified their own devices and collaborated with manufacturers in producing appealing designs that challenge the stigma surrounding disability technology. (Virdi 2024, 682-683)