HEAR Center

To help individuals with hearing loss or speech and language impairments integrate into the mainstream of the community by providing them with auditory and oral communication skills.

Why do we exist?

HEAR Center provides an option to deaf children and adults to learn to listen and participate in the mainstream.  HEAR Center was founded in 1954 by Dr. Ciwa Griffiths, a teacher of hearing impaired children.  She developed testing and teaching methods which promoted early identification of hearing loss and the development of normal speech and language to give the children the tools necessary to be integrated into classrooms with their normally hearing peers.  Her methods were called "The Auditory Approach".  In the mid sixties, the program was expanded to include hearing testing and the evaluation of hearing aids for adults.  Today, with the development of digital technology and cochlear implants, hearing impaired individuals of all ages can be identified early and fitted with appropriate amplification to reduce the effects of deafness.  The youngest child evaluated at HEAR Center was just four (4) days old and the oldest adult seen for services was one hundred seven years old (107).

What have you accomplished?

Patty was 2½ years old when her parents brought her to HEAR Center for testing because she was not developing speech.  Following hearing testing in the sound room, the family was informed that Patty's responses indicated a profound hearing loss.  The parent's response was one of relief, "Thank God.  We were told that she was retarded.  Now, what do we do?"  Patty was fitted with two powerful hearing aids and was enrolled in individual therapy where she was taught to listen, respond to sounds, discriminate between different sounds, and develop spoken language through hearing.  She was enrolled in a preschool with hearing and speaking children so that she had normal speech and language models.  She continued her education from Kindergarten through High School in the regular classroom with her neighborhood peers.   Patty was seen for individual therapy twice a week for ten years to develop her vocabulary and teach her the cognitive skills necessary to compete in the mainstream.  Patty is now an adult.  She has a well paying job, friends and family.  She continues to have a profound hearing loss, but the effects of deafness have been reduced through the continued use of hearing aids and her ability to communicate verbally and participate fully in the mainstream.

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