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The Hearing Loss Association of America exists to open the world of communication
to people with hearing loss through information, support, education, and advocacy.
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Walk with your friends and family, meet others who live with hearing loss, and support the efforts of the Hearing Loss Association of America and its NYC Chapter to raise awareness about hearing loss.
Join us on Sunday, September 27th, in Riverside Park at W. 97th Street for the 8th annual Walk4Hearing.
To walk with HLAA's New York Chapter's team,
Walk New York!,
register
here
a
nd click on "Join Team." To donate to another Walk team, click on that team's name. If you're not available to walk, please consider
Come to Riverside Park between 9 and 10 AM on Walk day to pick up your materials. The 5K Walk begins at 10 AM. Questions? Contact Team Captain Holly Cohen at
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REMINDER:
HELP US IMPROVE ACCESSIBILITY IN NYC -
MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD AT THE CITY COUNCIL
If you haven't yet done so . . .
Please email City Council President Melissa Mark-Viverito (
[email protected]
) in support of three important bills to improve accessibility to City meetings and events. Click on the numbers 1, 2, and 3 to read the bills, and click here for the announcement of the bills' introduction, including comments from advocates.
Simply copy and paste this sample. Thanks for sending
copies of your email to City Council member Andrew Cohen ([email protected]), chair of the committee in which the bills were introduced, and HLAA-NYC Board member Ruth Bernstein ([email protected]), who is tracking member support.
If you are coming to the Walk on Sunday . . .
Look for the table where you can sign HLAA-NYC's petition to the City Council urging support for the bills. Together, they will improve access to all City functions for the deaf and hard of hearing and those with other disabilities, and serve as precedents for additional city and state accessibility policies. The table will be near the HLAA-NYC booth.
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ASK THE AUDIOLOGISTS
Tuesday, October 20th Chapter Meeting
6-8 PM
NOTE: New location and new time
CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue (between 34th and 35th Streets)
Three audiologists -
Dorothy DiToro, assistant professor and co-coordinator of the City University of New York's Graduate Center Clinical Education Program in Audiology, Karen Siegel, Director of Audiology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine's Hearing and Balance Center, and William H. Shapiro, Supervising Audiologist at NYU's Cochlear Implant Center - will field questions about hearing aids, cochlear implants, and related topics.
CART (real-time captioning) provided by Lauren Schechter of TotalCaption.
Note: CART can be streamed onto any smartphone, computer, or tablet that has Internet access. At the meeting, ask Lauren to send you a link via email, click on the link, and the streaming text will appear. For additional information, see Lauren's website, www.TotalCaption.com.
An ASL interpreter will be provided with two weeks notice. Please send requests to
[email protected].
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KICKING OFF THE WALK4HEARING
 
Lisa Carling Dan and Jennifer Carione
The New York City WALK4HEARING kickoff, at Battery Gardens on August 12, featured four keynote speakers, starting with Victor Calise, Commissioner of the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities. Commissioner Calise pointed out that July 25, 2015, marked the 25th anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act. That law spurred New York City to make several venues more hearing accessible. In particular, Commissioner Calise mentioned the captioning of outdoor movies in city parks and the looping of increasing numbers of city offices, allowing the transmission of sound directly to hearing aids fitted with telecoils. He concluded, "The Hearing Loss Association of America is there to push us to do the right thing."
Deputy Inspector Dan Carione of the New York Police Department told of his four-year struggle to be restored to active duty after being forced to retire due to a hearing loss. His story began in 1996 when a fellow officer fired several shots close to his ear, causing nerve damage. He waited a decade before purchasing a hearing aid, but in 2009 the NYPD introduced a ban on hearing aid use by active patrolmen. Deputy Inspector Carione fought that ban for two years, but in June 2011 he was forced to retire. However, he was not done fighting. He filed a lawsuit, and with the help of Colleen Meenan and Associates, a firm that specializes in civil rights violations, and the support and guidance of HLAA, he reclaimed his job on March 9, 2015. "It is said that hearing loss is an invisible disability," Deputy Inspector Carione said. "I am here as living proof that we are invisible no more."
Lisa Carling, the director of the Theatre Development Fund, talked about TDF's Theatre Access Project (TAP), which has made Broadway shows more accessible to people with hearing loss via open captioning, I-captions (
a wireless visual aid that displays dialogue, lyrics, and sound effects on a handheld device), and I-glasses (glasses that display captioning). Ms. Carling thanked the HLAA-NYC members who volunteered to evaluate the assistive devices: Ruth Bernstein, Barbara Bryan, Mary Fredericks, Joe Gordon, and Anne Pope. And she thanked Jerry Bergman, founder and chair of the Hearing Accommodation Task Force of NY, because "advocacy efforts help theaters understand that accessibility is so important."
The final speaker, Joe Garin, is the father of a boy, Joey, who was born on June 7, 2013, with profound hearing loss in both ears. A bilateral cochlear implant connected Joey to the world when he was a year old, and now, in his father's words, "A little more than a year with access to sound, Joey has shown us how amazing he is. His implants are a part of him. They're a super power that he has embraced and accepted." Last year the Garins' New York City WALK4HEARING team, Joey G.'s Gang, was the walk's top fund-raiser. "We started this team not only to help raise awareness about hearing loss," Joe Garin said, "but to show our son what an incredible and supportive community we're a part of."
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SEPTEMBER CHAPTER MEETING RECAP
Katherine Bouton
The September 8 meeting began with Holly Cohen passing the chapter's leadership baton to Katherine Bouton. In addition to serving as the new HLAA-NYC president, Katherine is a member of the HLAA Board of Trustees, a former New York Times writer and editor, the writer of an AARP blog on hearing loss (which can be accessed on her website, KatherineBouton.com), and the author of Shouting Won't Help: Why I - and 50 Million Other Americans - Can't Hear You.
On September 8, Katherine read from her second book, Living Better with Hearing Loss: A Guide to Health, Happiness, Love, Sex, Work, Friends ... and Hearing Aids. An excerpt from the chapter "Roger and Me: Assistive Technology" addressed why speech comprehension is a challenge for people with hearing loss - even those who wear hearing aids - and contained the following passage: "
Unfortunately, the useful range of a hearing aid microphone ... is six to eight feet. This doesn't mean you won't hear more than eight feet away, but you'll have trouble deciphering sound. Then add the interference of the couple talking loudly at the table next to you, or the choir singing softly as the preacher intones, overlapping sounds on background TV, or the air conditioner humming in your therapist's office, and you're going to find yourself saying 'What?' a lot."
Katherine went on to discuss overcoming these obstacles via assistive listening devices, including telecoils, induction loops, captioning, FM systems, Roger pens (wireless microphones that can be used to understand speech), Bluetooth, and smartphone apps. For more information about assistive listening technology, be sure to attend the chapter's April 19, 2016 meeting.
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NEW TAXIS WITH LOOP SIGNAGE BEGINS ON NYC STREETS
Advocates for hearing accommodation in New York City have achieved another victory: The so-called "taxis of tomorrow" are now required by the Taxi & Limousine Commission to display induction loop signage both inside and out.
The familiar international induction loop hearing symbol appears at the top of the doorpost between the driver's seat and passenger door. The symbol appears again on the inside partition between driver and passenger, along with the words, "Induction loop installed. Switch hearing aid to T-coil."
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SAVE THE DATES
for upcoming 2015-2016 Chapter Meetings
(programs subject to change)
November 17 - Aural Rehabilitation
December 15 - The Strength of Shared Stories
No January Meeting
February 16 - Cochlear Implants
March 15 - Top 10 Tips for Coping with Hearing Loss on the Job
April 19 - What Technology Can Do for People with Hearing Loss
May 17 - On the Outside Looking In
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CAPTIONED THEATER PERFORMANCES
through the Theater Development Fund
For more informatiom and to join, visit
LOOPED THEATERS ON BROADWAY
Hear these musicals through your hearing aids/cochlear implants
at the following theaters:
Gershwin Theatre:
Wicked
Richard Rodgers Theatre:
Hamilton
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre:
Finding Neverland
Vivian Beaumont Theater:
The King and I
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BLOG CORNER
Katherine Bouton
Gael Hannan
How to Irritate People with Your Hearing Loss
Shari Eberts
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JOIN HLAA TODAY!
As the nation's leading organization for people with hearing loss, we provide information, education, support, and advocacy for the millions of Americans
coping with hearing loss.
Join online
or
download a
membership form.
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SENIOR RESOURCES FAIR
Our chapter will have a table at State Senator Liz Krueger's Senior Resources Fair on October 22, from 2 to 5 PM, to talk with you and answer your questions about hearing loss. The fair will be held at Temple Emanu-El, 1 E 65th St (at Fifth Avenue). We hope you can stop by. It will be well worth your time.
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Copyright © 2015. All Rights Reserved.
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HLAA is a volunteer association for people with hearing loss, their relatives, and friends. It is a nonprofit, nonsectarian educational organization devoted to the welfare and interests of those who cannot hear well. Your contribution is tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. We are a 501(c)(3) organization. Mention of suppliers and devices in this newsletter does not mean HLAA endorsement, nor does exclusion suggest disapproval.
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