My advice for anyone starting this journey is to make sure that you know your limits so you don’t get into a situation that you can’t handle. Plus, make sure the people you’re interacting with know what you’re going through so they can help.

When Lucile was little a lot of parents would say to us, “Oh, she has such good manners. She looks you right in the eye.” They didn’t realize she was just very much focused on their faces and lips as they were talking!

Veterans, when compared to the general public, have had more occupational exposure to loud noises, such as gunfire and explosions.

Gene therapy for hearing loss has transitioned from a theoretical concept into a transformative clinical reality, albeit limited to specific cases of genetic hearing loss—for now. 

Over the years, I had a lot of conversations with patients sitting across from me—sometimes at a desk, sometimes just chatting while they waited. And no matter who they were, many of them were feeling the same things: frustrated, unsure, and sometimes a little overwhelmed.

For this mom, late in life diagnoses turned years of confusion into a clearer sense of self and deeper connections.

This path in parenting the hard of hearing—let’s face it—can be exhausting. If you walked alone, and because this disability is so often invisible, your village might not be on your front porch. You have to go hunting for it.

Our daughters, whose ears do not hear, opened my eyes more widely than ever before.

“We offer two versions for your brand of hearing aids. One is simply a microphone. The other includes a built‑in telecoil so people whose hearing aids don’t have telecoils can still connect to a hearing loop. Either one sends sound to the user’s hearing aids via Bluetooth.” 

Gaming can be one of those rare things where a parent and child actually connect on equal ground. But that bonding only works if both people can be part of the conversation. Hearing loss can make that moment impossible because one of them can’t hear the other.

Understanding how internal state interacts with cell-type-specific circuits in the auditory cortex may ultimately help identify therapeutic targets for tinnitus and related hearing disorders.

For Deaf and hard of hearing children, books and stories are vital spaces where they can see themselves, feel understood, find community and belonging, and lay the foundation for confidence and identity development that will set them up for success throughout their lives. 

What these findings make clear is that audiologists are carrying an enormous clinical load. Much of what surrounds that load does not require their specialized training. 

This is a story of resilience, dark humor, and the technical challenge of mixing audio when your brain processes sound through a handful of electrodes instead of thousands of hair cells.

Why is a particular gene silent in a mouse supporting cell but active in a chicken supporting cell? Is the difference epigenetic? Are regulatory regions locked down in mammals? These are the kinds of questions we can now pursue systematically.

Whether you are a casual giver or a long-time philanthropist, understanding these changes—and utilizing tools like a donor-advised fund (DAF)—can help your dollars go much further.

Using the new biosensor, we discovered that zinc signaling is directly involved in how the brain processes sound in the auditory cortex during sound processing and in the amygdala during aversive responses.

Hearing loss doesn’t have to be the end. It can feel like it, but it doesn’t have to be. Music is still possible. Life is still possible. There are ways to regain control, ways to find your own authorship through understanding. I want people to know that.

Younger and older adults improved at similar rates from lower levels of noise—meaning that both groups benefited equally from better listening conditions. But older adults needed a head start: They needed lower levels of background noise to reach the same accuracy.

As shown on “The Pitt,” when an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter is unavailable or real-time captioning is missing, vital information is lost, leading to diagnostic and treatment delays.

Serotonin seems to quiet down excitatory neurons while boosting inhibitory ones. This differential modulation may help us to understand the role of serotonin in auditory disorders such as tinnitus and age-related hearing loss.

Today, I wear my “HARD OF HEARING” hoodie proudly because I’m no longer hiding from my hearing loss.

In addition to conducting research, I realized that prevention is just as important, or even more important than treatment. Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is becoming increasingly prevalent among Gen Z—my peers—due to increased access to personal listening devices and loud entertainment events.

Auracast promises something long imagined but never fully realized: a standardized, open broadcast that allows audience members to receive high-quality audio directly in their own hearing aids, earbuds, or smartphones. This happens without venue-specific hardware, without checkout counters, and without the stigma or inconvenience of borrowed devices.

The internship last summer provided my first real chance to step into hearing science and learn the experimental side of speech perception under the tutelage of a senior researcher. 

Our new public service announcement “Let’s Listen Smart” recognizes that life is loud—and it’s also fun. And the last thing we want to do is stop having fun! We just need to listen responsibly.

Hearing contributes directly to independence, confidence, and how actively people participate in daily routines, and regular hearing checks deserve the same kind of attention people already give to routine doctor or dental visits.

We are proud that Hearing Health Foundation-funded scientists are always well represented at Association for Research in Otolaryngology MidWinter Meeting.

For individuals with long-term hearing loss or severely degraded auditory input, the lack of reliable auditory feedback represents a challenge many orders of magnitude greater than the temporary masking used in this study. 

It bears repeating: What improves access for a group with a specific disability invariably also helps the greater population.