Ray Reed, information officer at the Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Boston, said under the ADA, public meetings have to be made accessible to a person with disabilities. You can't foresee everyone's needs. Hopefully, the person can work with the town to make meetings more accessible to people with hearing loss. In addition to using microphones, other methods can be used to accommodate the hearing-impaired, Reed said. Some communities provide a sign-language interpreter at meetings, while others have a program called Communication Access Real Time Translation.
Some towns use it at their meetings.
Bigelow-Costa hopes that a solution can be found that will help her to feel comfortable at the next meeting she attends.