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CHAPTER MEETING
Tuesday, November 15
ENJOYING NEW YORK:
How to Make the Most of Hearing Access Opportunities in Our Cultural Treasures
The following speakers will talk about New York City's accessible theater performances, movies, concerts, and lectures.
- HLAA-NYC Board Member Ruth Bernstein (who will also emcee the program)
- HLAA-NYC Chapter President Katherine Bouton
- Miranda Appelbaum, Assistant Director, Accessibility and Guest Services, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
- Lisa Carling, Director of TDF Accessibility Programs at Theater Development Fund
- Lara Schweller, Coordinator, Community and Access Programs, Museum of Modern Art
CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue (between 34th and 35th Streets), room C198
6-8 PM
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CART (real-time captioning) provided by Lauren Schechter of
TotalCaption
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An ASL interpreter will also be provided.
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OCTOBER CHAPTER MEETING RECAP
Improving Communication in Everyday Life: Shared Stories and Suggestions
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Holly Cohen (standing) passed around the microphone so that people could share their stories and ask questions about coping with hearing loss.
HLAA-NYC member and hearing health advocate Holly Cohen facilitated a discussion in which attendees talked about their experiences with hearing loss in medical, social, entertainment, and work settings. In a prelude to the main discussion, Jody Prysock, a former director of language, culture, and disability services at NYU Langone Medical Center, described the Communication Access Plan (CAP), a checklist that she and Board Member Toni Iacolucci developed to help deaf and hard of hearing people convey their communication needs to healthcare providers.
Among the suggestions that participants offered to facilitate interactions between health care personnel and patients:
* Instead of saying "I'm hard of hearing," say, "I wear two hearing aids."
* When you visit a medical office or hospital, bring a support person along.
* If you've been hospitalized, ask that a "hearing loss" sign be posted over your bed.
* Ask medical personnel to put healthcare instructions in writing.
Advice on other topics included:
* If you go a lecture, house of worship, or other public place and you cannot hear the speaker, point out that under the Americans with Disabilities Act people with hearing loss are entitled to equal accesibility in all places of public accommodation - and suggest that a loop system be installed.
* Prepare in advance. When you make a restaurant reservation, ask for a quiet table in a corner. Before going to a museum, movie, or theater production, look at the venue's website to determine accessibility.
* Ask your audiologist about telecoils, noise-reduction settings, and other means of getting more from your hearing aid or cochlear implant.
Holly, who stressed that empowering people with hearing loss "is about speaking up," distributed the Call to Action - a comprehensive list of communication access tips developed by HLAA's national office. In the words of HLAA-NYC Board Member Anne Pope, "Most of us don't feel comfortable standing up for ourselves. But that's what we need to do. And every time we do it we are teaching someone what it's like to have a hearing loss. It's important for us to be educators."
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SEPTEMBER CHAPTER MEETING RECAP
Disaster Preparedness & Recovery: Tips for New Yorkers with Hearing Loss
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HLAA-NYC Chapter President Katherine Bouton (at podium) with, from left to right, New York City Emergency Management representatives Jeffry Adelman, Elizabeth Angeles, and Matthew Povogel.
On September 20, three people from the New York City Emergency Management office provided advice on how adults with hearing loss can prepare for floods, terrorist attacks, and other disasters. Among their tips: If you do not have access to your hearing aid or cochlear implant, use "legacy technologies" - including old-fashioned pen and paper - to communicate with friends, family, and emergency workers.
For complete coverage of the meeting, click
here to read Katherine's Bouton's blog post.
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SAVE THE DATES
For Upcoming 2016-2017 Chapter Meetings
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December 20
Current and Emerging Hearing Access Technology
Speakers:
HLAA National Board Member Richard Einhorn and composer Jay Alan Zimmerman
CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, Room C198
No meeting in January
February 21
Speaker: Barbara Weinstein, PhD., Professor and Founding Executive Officer of the Doctor of Audiology Program (Au.D), CUNY Graduate Center.
CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, Segal Theater
March 21
What HLAA Is Doing for You - National Board Members Reveal All
CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, Room C198
April 25
(Due to Passover, this meeting will take place on the fourth Tuesday of the month)
Cochlear Implants: Present and Future
Speakers: Justin Golub, M.D, Otologist/Neurotologist and Columbia University Assistant Professor; and David
Landsberger,
Ph.D., NYU Langone Medical Center researcher
CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, Segal Theater
May 16
Hearing Aids
Speaker: Joe Montano, Ph.D., Chief of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center
CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, Segal Theater
June 6
Hearing Loss Heroes: Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony
Muhlenberg Library, 209 W. 23 Street, Third Floor Community Room
Note: Programs are subject to change.
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ADVOCACY WORKS!
The Latest NYC Looped Venues |
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DEFINITION OF LOOPING
A hearing loop is a wire that circles a room and is connected to a sound system. The loop transmits the sound electromagnetically directly to the telecoil in a hearing aid or cochlear implant.
NYC LOOPED VENUES
Thanks to advocacy efforts by HLAA-NYC members, more and more venues in the metropolitan area are now looped. Click
here
to see the updated list of looped sites. The list was compiled by HLAA-NYC member Ellen Semel, with the help of Alexandra Lutz, who in addition to making numerous telephone calls, visited many of the venues to confirm the loop's location and effectiveness.
BROADWAY SHOWS CURRENTLY AT LOOPED THEATERS
From the Nederlander Organization
Gershwin: Wicked
Minskoff: The Lion King
Richard Rodgers: Hamilton
Lunt-Fontanne: Various Shows
From the Shubert Organization
Bernard B. Jacobs: The Color Purple
Lincoln Center
Vivian Beaumont: Oslo
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WATCH MOVIES WITH CAPTIONS AT AMC & REGAL THEATERS
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Captioning that has long been required on television is also available at
AMC and
Regal theaters.
AMC offers CaptiView, a goose-neck device that fits into your seat's cup holder and displays all of the movie's dialogue in text. Regal provides Sony Entertainment Access glasses, which resemble 3-D glasses. Captions are projected onto the glasses, and appear to float about 10 feet in front of the user.
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| FUTURE SONGBOOK SERIES AT LINCOLN CENTER |
Want to hear Broadway singers sing songs of the Broadway writers of tomorrow? Plus enjoy every lyric through captions? Come on over to Lincoln Center's Bruno Walter Auditorium located at 111 Amsterdam Avenue and 65th Street.
Hosted and produced by John Znidarsic, this FREE and exciting Songbook Series happens the last Monday of every month at 6 PM and launched the careers of Broadway composers Jason Robert Brown and Andrew Lippa plus HLAA's own Jay Alan Zimmerman. And for the 5th year in a row, the New York Public Library has provided captions.
Just click nypl.org/captions on your device to see the captions. You can also check this page between performances to see what's coming up and who is performing.
SAVE THE DATES
Monday, November 28 - writer to be announced
Saturday, December 10 - Jay Alan Zimmerman's Naughty & Nice Holiday Songbook
(The full show is coming back to Lincoln Center this year.)
Monday, December 12 - writer to be announced
WHAT: Broadway's Future Songbook Series
WHERE: Lincoln Center's Bruno Walter Auditorium
111 Amsterdam Avenue and 65th Street
WHEN: Last Monday of every month, fall-spring, 6-7:30 PM
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| CAPTIONED SHOW IN THE GARDEN STATE |
The Two River Theater, at 21 Bridge Avenue in Red Bank, New Jersey, has periodic performances captioned by HLAA-NYC's CART provider, Lauren Schechter of TotalCaption. The next captioned show will be the December 3 matinee performance of the historical drama The Lion in Winter. For more information, click here.
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| OUR FAVORITE HEARING LOSS BLOGS |
Katherine Bouton
For My Summer Vacation I Went to Hearing Camp
Who says only kids get to go to camp? Last week I went to hearing camp. We didn't sleep in bunks, but we did have sing-alongs, games, and picnic lunches. And we spent a lot of time talking and, more importantly, listening. Hearing camp was a four-day program at the University of Connecticut at Storrs, sponsored by the university's
Aural Rehabilitation Laboratory and the
Hearing Rehabilitation Foundation, run by Geoff Plant in Somerville, Mass.
Read more of this post.
Shari Eberts
Is My Hearing Getting Worse?
I fear my hearing is getting worse. Since the summer ended, I have been having a harder time following conversations. I more often mishear questions asked by store employees. I stare blankly at the waiter when he is reading the specials. I have also become more sensitive to loud noises like announcements over loudspeakers and trucks barreling up Third Avenue. I am having more trouble hearing my husband and daughter. Read more of this post.
Gael Hannan
How to Talk to a Hard of Hearing Person
Conversing with a hard of hearing person is much easier if you, the 'hearing' person, are aware of the hearing loss. If you don't know that the person you're talking to has a hearing problem, you're forgiven (somewhat) for looking off into space as you prattle on, or mumbling, or putting your hands in front of your mouth. It's understandable that you might speak softly, indistinctly, or use unconnected phrases with no verbs. And how could you possibly know that your facial expressions and body language should match your actual words?
Read more of this post.
A Tale of Two Canines
Meet Melanie Riordan, a woman with quite a story to tell! In 2004, Melanie discovered that she had a brain tumor and her whole world came crashing down on her. Melanie's hearing was affected by the brain tumor, and she received a BAHA implantable device by Cochlear Corporation
two years ago. She also enlisted the help of Canine Companions for Independence, and received her first dog, Noah.
Read more of this post.
Nancy Williams
Veteran Plays Piano Despite Suicide Bomber Attack
Captain Mark Brogan lay on the ground of an Anbar province marketplace in Iraq in April, 2006. He had shrapnel in his spinal chord, was missing a third of his skull bone, and had severe arm injuries as well as hearing loss and tinnitus. And yet when he awakened from a nearly three-week coma after the suicide bomber's attack, all he wanted to do was play the piano.
Read more of this post
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DISCOUNT PRICES for
CAPTIONED THEATER PERFORMANCES through TDF |
The Theatre Development Fund's Accessibility Programs (TAP) offers a membership service for theatergoers who have hearing loss or are deaf. TDF/TAP obtains special seating and provides captioning. There is no annual fee, but you must provide proof of eligibility. To see what shows are available - and to join - visit
TDF Accessibility Programs
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WEBSITE for THEATERGOERS WITH DISABILITIES
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Those who are hard of hearing or deaf, have low vision or are blind, who cannot climb stairs, who require aisle seating or wheelchair locations, who are on the autism spectrum or have other developmental or cognitive disabilities, now can find out everything they need to know to choose a show, buy tickets, and plan their trip to Broadway by visiting Theatre Access NYC.
IS NEW WEBSITE FOR INFORMATION OF THEATRE
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CENTER for HEARING and COMMUNICATION
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CHC will provide a 5 percent discount on all purchases of hearing aids and FM systems (and a 15 percent discount of two hearing aids) by HLAA members.
In order to obtain the discounts, you must show written documentation of your HLAA membership. For more information, call the CHC appointment secretary at 917-305-7766, or email
appointments@chchearing.org.
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| HONOR SOMEONE with a GIFT to the HLAA-NYC CHAPTER |
SUPPORT HLAA - BECOME A MEMBER
As the nation's leading organization for people with hearing loss, we provide information, education, support, and advocacy for the millions of Americans
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Searching for the perfect way to observe a loved one's birthday, anniversary, or special occasion, OR to honor the memory of someone special? Please consider making a gift to HLAA-NYC Chapter to support our efforts.
You can donate online or by mailing a check (payable to HLAA-NYC) to HLAA-NYC Chapter, P.O. Box 602, Radio City Station, New York, NY 10101. Include name and address. An acknowledgement will be mailed. Donations are tax deductible.
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Hearing Loss Association of America - New York City Chapter
The Hearing Loss Association of America exists to open the world of communication
to people with hearing loss through information, education, support, and advocacy.
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