IC News

Even though the Hearing Clinic is physically located on campus, it extends into the community via community partnerships. One of those partnerships, with the Tompkins Community Action’s HeadStart program, has lasted over 15 years and provides free annual screenings for every enrolled child: a vital service as children begin their early education.

Children enrolled in the HeadStart program are screened twice annually. This screening goes beyond the hearing test at an annual exam at the pediatrician’s office, which might not catch a hearing loss or issue in those early years of life. The first screening takes place at what Rachel Shorts, enrollment manager of Tompkins Community Action’s HeadStart, calls their “Screening Extravaganza” event each year in August, where students are re-screened for hearing and receive developmental screening, socially emotional screening, vision screening, and nutritional screening. This year, the clinic screened 121 enrolled children.

Michelle Blodgett, family services director for Tompkins Community Action, explains that without insurance, families cannot access hearing screenings because they are only offered by specialists, and even if families can get in, the appointments are booked months out. She further explains, “imagine a child can't hear and someone's asking them to do something. It may appear to be that they're ignoring or they're not listening when the truth is they actually can't hear you. The impact is cognitive, emotional ,and social.” IC’s hearing clinic closes that gap—if there is a hearing difference diagnosis, IC’s clinic faculty, along with HeadStart staff, can and address it with the family immediately.

Rominger and the clinic added a partnership this year with the Ithaca City School District, providing NY State-mandated screenings at South Hill, BJM, and Northeast Elementary Schools for students enrolled in Pre-K through 5th grade. This resulted in 334 completed screenings in the last year alone.

On campus, the clinic sees about 250 people per year. A large source of its clients are students and faculty from the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance (MTD). Performers, musicians, sound engineers, and crew all rely on their hearing to do their jobs. MTD faculty take ear health seriously, stressing for their students how imperative it is to keep their hearing at full capacity and how to treat their ears. Mike Caporizzo, associate professor and director of the Sound Recording Technology program, starts talking about hearing health early on in his classes. He explains, “in my first semester of the freshman class there is a warning about long-term exposure. I tell them, ‘here's some things they can do about it: we have an excellent clinic right here on campus. They will do those custom molds. They will give you your hearing exam. Please get involved and make your appointment as soon as possible.’” Custom molds are ear protection that look like ear plugs you purchase in a store, but have been made specifically to the shape of your ear, your hearing ability, and the intended use of the protection (for example, being in the audience at a concert vs being a sound engineer listening to recorded music directly in their ears for multiple hours a day).

Brian Dozoretz ’94, recording services manager in the Department of Music and sound engineer for IC, is passionate about the power of sound in the arts. He points out many ways an engineer or artist can interact with loud sounds: many venues and spaces are not made for the sounds played in them, the spaces can react with negative vibrations, or, depending where an ensemble player sits in the band, they could be getting blasted by brass sections or have their ears next to a percussion sections for hours on end. Doing this repeatedly for days, months, or a life-long career leads to hearing deterioration.

He explains that hearing is part of being a professional because your ears are your greatest assets. Taking care of your ears is everything.

The clinic also serves the Office of Environmental Health and Safety on campus. Environmental workers, including grounds, transportation, and public safety, are exposed to hazardous noises on the daily: traffic, motors, and machinery that affect their abilities to do the job at one hundred percent, as well as their safety.

The ear and auditory systems are fascinating, intricate, and delicate, but also resilient. Think about all the sounds you have experienced in a lifetime and at what levels of loudness those sounds have been—from the hushed tones of a soft wind to the laugh of a baby, the lessons taught to us by a teacher, to the thunderous decibels at a concert or a fireworks display, to someone shouting “get out the way” when there is a car barreling down the street. Now, think about what it would be like if you couldn’t hear those things accurately.

Dozoretz tells a story of bringing his mother-in-law to the clinic—even though she wore a hearing aids, her hearing wasn’t great, and she was missing conversations and developed a habit of nodding her head in acknowledgement even though she couldn’t hear everything. Once she was screened, IC students were able to identify that her hearing aid wasn’t tuned properly to her specific hearing capability. Once the change was made, her quality of life changed immediately. She made a new group of friends because she could hear, interact, and connect. She participated and engaged in conversations. The isolation of her world was removed. 

As Rominger aptly puts the importance of the hearing clinic and audiology work, “Our job as audiologists and speech language pathologists is to find out from the person experiencing hearing differences if it's impacting their daily life and if it is, how can we help to guide them in ways to improve their communication or lessen the impact of those hearing differences? I always think of it as, ‘how do we help you to live well with hearing loss?’”