| Hearing Aid Pricing Survey Our first annual survey is a collaboration with Hearing Tracker and advocate Katherine Bouton. |
HLAA National has posted a survey for all of our hearing aid users asking for your very important feedback regarding the true impact hearing aid pricing and options has on your daily life. Please take a moment to share your feedback so that your voice can be heard to advocate for better supporting on hearing aid needs!
This is the first meeting of Spring, 2018 and the first in our new location in Sherman Oaks.
Gary Dorf
Our guest speaker will be Gary Dorf, Regional Manager at Oticon USA in Orange County. His presentation will focus on recent studies that deal with cognition and hearing loss. BrainHearing™ describes the approach that Oticon takes when creating solutions for those with hearing loss. It starts with the fundamental observation that speech understanding is a cognitive process that happens in the brain. (Summary via HLAA-City of Orange website; thank you!)
We will also hold elections for two interim steering committee members. Those elected will serve until regular elections in September. If interested, email Heather elsewhere on our website, http://hlaa-la.org/contact-us/
A note about March 24: Chapter President Heather Lehr will be attending the HLAA-California Board of Trustees meeting, which is open to all. It takes place from 9am-3pm at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites LAX, 11436 Hawthorne Blvd, Los Angeles… Other members may be taking part in the March for Our Lives Rally in Downtown L.A.
(Meeting transcripts can be found here)
WOW awards to Teri Brier, for arranging the March guest speaker (Gary Dorf of Oticon, who will discuss cognition and hearing loss) and Tim Browning, for winning National’s “Best Chapter Website” award (to be presented at the convention)
Walk4Hearing coming up on June 9; more details to follow, including volunteer opportunities. One is a carpool organizer to get to Long Beach.
It’s rare that our chapter moves to a new location. As a matter of fact, this move to the Sherman Oaks Library for our March meeting will only be the second time since the founding of the chapter over 13 years ago! But times change and our chapter needs to adapt. The Huntington Hospital served our needs and we thank them, but there were challenges, as many of you know, with the location. We hope you’ll find this new location to your liking.
| ACTION ALERT Save the ADA! HLAA Opposes Misguided, Damaging H.R. 620 |
Big business is trying to bamboozle the House and the American public into supporting an unnecessary law misleadingly titled the “ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017” (H.R.620) that would make it even harder for people with disabilities who have been waiting to listen to the same programs, use the same restrooms, shop at the same department stores, and eat at the same restaurants as our non-disabled friends and family members, for almost 30 years!
ASHA, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, has launched a new campaign called the Healthy Communication & Popular Technology Initiative. The program was designed for parents, educators and young people to promote safe use of popular technology and discourage its overuse in the interest of protecting and fostering healthy communication. Read more.
A very interesting subject of interest to us all will be presented at this years 2018 HLAA Convention Research Symposium. Please see below for more information and a link to the speakers for each presentation.
Friday, June 22
9 a.m. – Noon
Hearing and listening in noise is often identified as the number one difficulty for people with hearing loss. A great deal of research has been done on this topic by hearing aid manufacturers, audiologists, psychologists, neurobiologists, audio engineers and others. This symposium, presented by top professionals in the field, will focus on noise reduction/cancellation circuitry in hearing aids and cochlear implants. The speakers will discuss the current and future direction of solving the issue of hearing in noise.
Take a look at our speakers and a summary of each presentation.
Love is in the air! And in honor of Valentine’s Day, we are doing a moderated panel on coping with hearing loss featuring: married couples, single and dating, and parent-child challenges! Note these panel participants will come from a mixed environment – one hearing and other hard of hearing.
It’s going to be an awesome love-fest, so come prepared with any questions you may have regarding your own communication/relationship issues, and please invite hearing family members and significant others to attend!
Networking starts at 9:30am with the meeting starting at 10:00am and going until 12:00pm. As always, the meeting will be CART captioned and looped for tele-coil users; coffee and refreshments will be served. You are welcome to bring breakfast potluck items to share.
We are meeting at the Huntington Memorial Hospital. Directions here. See you on February 24th!
Chapter member Michael Thal is offering an American Sign Language (ASL) course for beginners starting Tuesday, February 6, 2018 from 6:00-7:00 PM to be held at 18344 Clark Street #205, Tarzana, CA. The course costs $15 per class for 11 classes; the first class is free. If you pay up front, you will save $50, costing you only $100. Don’t miss out on a great opportunity to learn sign language! Even if you miss the first class, you are welcomed to join any class.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
• ASL Alphabet
• Counting from 1-30 on one hand
• Basic vocabulary: family, colors, food, prepositions, pronouns, verbs, etc.
• Deaf Culture
• Baby Sign
• Any words you need for work or home
If you’d like to reserve a space, please email Michael Thal at michaelthal@sbcglobal.net.
Space is limited. You can also text only at 818-398-1805.
Our January 2018 Meeting
(Click here for our meeting transcript)
We had a great meeting for January focusing on catching up with each other after the holidays and not seeing each other for some time. We capped it off with our guest speaker, Dr. Ray Goldsworthy, who provided an in-depth discussion about Cochlear Implants (CI) and optimizing how they are used (see more below). The presentation was more of a free form and open discussion to ensure immediate questions people had were addressed. We also had a great surprise that Lisa was able to join us as she is visiting here all the way from Washington D.C.!
