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Innovators Design Hybrid Masks To Aid People With Impaired Hearing

Published August 4, 2020 at 10:33 AM MDT
The Badger Shield+, designed by an engineering team at the University of Wisconsin Madison, is currently being tested. (Courtesy of University of Wisconsin Madison School of Engineering)
The Badger Shield+, designed by an engineering team at the University of Wisconsin Madison, is currently being tested. (Courtesy of University of Wisconsin Madison School of Engineering)

Face masks pose problems for people who have impaired hearing, but there are ways to make it easier to communicate with people with hearing loss.

One work-in-progress is a hybrid mask — part shield, part mask that makes it easier to read a speaker’s lips.

Chuck Quirmbach of WUWM reports.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.