All Palm Beach County residents who are deaf or hard-of-hearing are offered specialized telephone equipment, at no charge, provided by the Deaf Service Center in West Palm Beach and Florida Telecommunications Relay.
According to the Deaf Center, there are more than 170,000 residents who are entitled to use this equipment and the proper training to use it. Requirements are proof of Florida residency and hearing loss.
For those with a moderate hearing loss, telephones with volume and tone control are provided, easily operated by both the hard-of-hearing individual and anyone else living in the same household. For those with a severe to profound hearing loss, and who also have intelligible speech the Center can provide a CapTel telephone which uses relay operator assistance to communicate messages. The relay operation captions everything said and it appears on the phone display screen. The telephone also has amplification, so the hard-of-hearing person can both listen to the conversation and read the captions.
A text telephone (“TTY”) is offered to deaf clients. The message is either directly typed to another TTY user, or to a person using a standard telephone through a third party relay service.
Proper training and instructions on how to operate the phones are provided. Those eligible can call for an appointment at the Delray Beach office at 561-278-6444.
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