Mission

To pursue the understanding and adoption of those principles, practices, designs, and technologies that best realize a world in which seamless and simple hearing access is available to everyone with hearing loss so they can participate fully across all aspects of daily life.

Overview

Founded in 2024, the nonprofit Center for Hearing Access is a national advocacy and education initiative of The John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts. We champion and educate consumers, facility staff, audiologists, and hearing instrument specialists about all ADA-compliant assistive listening systems and other strategies to increase access to theaters, libraries, conferences, government offices, healthcare facilities, courtrooms, transportation, and other public and private spaces. Effective hearing access can be life-changing for people with hearing loss, supporting them in maintaining meaningful community engagement and enriching cultural experiences.

Work: Advocacy materials, ADA information, a speaker’s bureau, videos, templates for users and staff, articles, and vendor lists.
Audience: people with hearing loss, audiologists, hearing instrument specialists, architects, sound engineers, ADA coordinators, and owner/operators at sites.

Reputable, Neutral, Educational Focus

The Center for Hearing Access provides educational and informational resources and does not endorse any product, business, or service. CHA does not accept donations from any hearing-related vendor.

Tax ID

Tax ID 93-1045304 | 501(c)(3) If you are interested in making a tax-deductible donation to support this work, please contact us

Background

The website, hearingloop.org was the predecessor to this website. It originally was created by Hope College psychology professor and author David G. Myers. David is a person with hearing loss, the son of a mother who became completely deaf, and the author of a memoir of his experiences with hearing loss and hearing technologies (A Quiet World: Living with Hearing Loss, Yale University Press, 2000). From 2013 to 2017 he represented Americans with hearing loss on the advisory council of NIH’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

Read his articles on advocating for direct hearing aid compatible assistive listening and his experiences and approach of Getting Hard of Hearing People “in the Loop”

David has no financial interest in any hearing assistance company and is a well-wisher to all companies that enable hearing aid-compatible assistive listening.

He is married to Carol, the creator and host of an informational website devoted to the real Santa Claus, St. Nicholas (aka Saint Nicholas).