Welcome aboard the NDCS Listening Bus

The hugely popular Listening Bus has been travelling the UK since 1996 delivering the NDCS’s unique information service to the doorstep of the nation’s deaf children; their families and friends and the professionals working with them.

The friendly and knowledgeable roadshow team provide workshops demonstrating the latest equipment available to give hearing impaired children and young people more independence and the opportunity to try the equipment for themselves. Flashing doorbells, earhooks (for listening to music) and vibrating alarm clocks are just some examples of the wide range of equipment on show that can hugely benefit deaf young people. Workshops for hearing children are also on offer; raising awareness of childhood deafness and closing the communication gap between the deaf children and their hearing peers. 

The bus stocks NDCS publications and provides information on all other NDCS services and activities, plus other essential deafness related resources such as where to purchase equipment, online resources for deaf young people, parent led local groups and more.

Since its launch, the Listening Bus has travelled all over Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland visiting hundreds of venues, including mainstream and deaf schools, sensory support services, audiology centres and special events. The bus has been completely revamped over the years and has developed from a purely technology focused showcase to an all encompassing information centre.

The Listening Bus carries examples of the following equipment:

• Amplified telephones and flashing telephone alerts
• Textphones and videophones
• Vibrating Alarm clocks
• Smoke detectors
• Flashing Doorbells
• Personal paging systems alerting to home devices
• Radio aids
• Loop systems for TV and mobile phones
• Music Link Earhooks (for Ipods/MP3s/ PCs etc)
• Deaf Awareness DVDs