CID RECEIVES $12,000 GRANT FROM RONALD McDONALD
HOUSE CHARITIES OF METRO ST. LOUIS

For more information, contact Kim Readmond, 314/977-0243, kreadmond@cid.edu

ST. LOUIS, Missouri, August 2008 CID – Central Institute for the Deaf has received a $12,000 grant from the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Metro St. Louis to purchase a new Audioscan Verift machine, an essential piece of equipment used in CID’s pediatric audiology clinic. The additional machine will enable CID audiologists to treat more students and alumni and eliminate delays in service.

          "Audiology is s critical component of our family center and school programs at CID. The children we serve need to hear optimally at all times in order to learn how to listen and talk, and we need to provide the right equipment and professionals to give continuous, quality care,” CID executive director Robin M. Feder said.
           When Dr. Max Goldstein founded CID 95 years ago on the second floor of his St. Louis medical office, children did not have hearing devices to help them learn to speak. Today, without the use of sign language, CID teaches 125 children annually to use the sound available through their digital hearing aids and cochlear implants to learn how to speak, read and write at grade level so they can attend mainstream schools with their hearing peers.

           The Audioscan Verifit will help CID’s audiologists ensure each child is using the right device for their particular hearing loss. This system measures the level of the sound at the child’s eardrum and enables the clinician to verify that the child’s hearing aid is providing audibility for all levels of everyday speech and to determine that sounds are not uncomfortable. 

          Properly fitted hearing aids can give a one-month-old baby her first opportunity to hear the sound of her mother’s voice, a preschooler the ability to distinguish the word “cat” from the word “hat,” and a 10-year-old the ability to talk with friends on the telephone.
          “You cannot overestimate the importance of our audiology clinic,” Feder said. “Ronald McDonald House Charities of Metro St. Louis understands how our clinic, audiologists and the equipment they use have a direct, positive impact on our students’ educational success. Thanks to their generous support, we can serve more children with fewer delays so they can hear optimally and learn every day.”
          CID teachers use the auditory-oral method to prepare deaf children to participate and succeed in mainstream educational settings without the need for sign language. CID school children have come from 48 U.S. states and 28 countries. CID’s Joanne Parrish Knight Family Center serves children and their families from birth to 3 years old. CID pre-k and primary programs serve students ages 3 to 12.
          CID also offers a peer program that integrates hearing children into classes with preschoolers who are deaf and hard of hearing, a program for hearing preschoolers with language delays, educational materials used throughout the world to help children who are deaf and hard of hearing, in-service training and continuing education workshops for professionals and practicum experiences for local university graduate students in deaf education and audiology. CID teachers serve as faculty in the Washington University School of Medicine Program in Audiology and Communication Sciences (PACS), a program closely affiliated with but financially independent from CID.  

                                                                      *****

Editor’s notes: CID was founded in 1914. It is located at 825 South Taylor Avenue, at the southern end of the Washington University Medical Center/Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis (63110).