Support / Education / Advocacy
Through informational meetings (online and in-person), communications (newsletter, web, social media), accessible events, community outreach, and advocacy we help people with hearing loss communicate better to live more fully.
Join Us!
2025 Walk4Hearing Fundraisers have begun!
Find out info below!
Reuse/Recycle
Consider donating old hearing aids.
Living Well with Hearing Loss can be challenging….
We can help!
Donate
Support those with hearing loss like us by donating on PayPal!
Upcoming Events & Meetings
- Sep 17th: AI in Hearing Tech
Speaker: Andrea Kaneb
Register: AI in Hearing Tech
Adapting in real time, reducing background noise, learning user preferences to enable new levels of personalization, AI is transforming hearing aids. Guest speaker Andrea Kaneb will discuss these advances, why hearing in noise remains a challenge and what’s on the horizon to improve it.
- Sep 19 @Sandwich Library
How Library Services Can Support your Hearing Needs
Speaker: Brad McKenna
Friday, September 19 @ 11 am Sandwich Public Library
142 Main Street, Sandwich MA 02563
Directions: https://maps.app.goo.gl/qAEtAx2FkKEyCqSN8
Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/s/89631740665#success
Brown Bag lunch to follow; bring your lunch and meet others!
- Sep 23 @ State House
Deaf and Hard of Hearing Constituents Day
MCDHH invites you to Deaf and Hard of Hearing Constituents Day, presented by the MCDHH Statewide Advisory Council (SAC).
Attendees will have the opportunity to meet state legislators, celebrate Deaf culture and language, and connect with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community of Massachusetts.
ASL Interpreters and CART services will be provided during this event. Additional accommodations: contact [email protected]
MA STATE HOUSE: The Great Hall, 24 Beacon St. Boston 02133
- Oct 5th – Boston Walk4Hearing
Join us to Walk and Fundraise or Donate!
This event brings together families and friends, neighbors and work colleagues alike to walk to raise awareness of hearing loss in the general community and to fundraise for DHH support services. Money raised supports services offered at the National level through our HLAA parent organization and locally through HLAA Boston and other DHH service organizations that participate.
For HLAA Boston, funds raised via the Walk4Hearing provide 99% of the resources we have available to serve you and others with hearing loss in the Boston area.
Please Donate to support us at HLAA Boston who are walking for you!!!
eNews
- Museum of Science: Hearing Loss Exhibit
Boston Hearing Loss Advocates Lead Creation of Dynamic Exhibit
Spurred by long-time hearing loss advocate Andrea Kaneb (above left) — who sits on the MOS and HLAA Boards — the exhibit also includes HLAA Boston leader Jonathan Ozek (above, 2nd to left) and member Saiim Khan sharing their personal hearing loss stories among others.
THANK YOU MOS partners for making this exhibit a reality!
- An Outside Perspective on Hearing Loss
Hi! My name is Julie and this summer I am interning for HLAA Boston with my friend Alice. I want to start off this post stating that I don’t have hearing loss and I am not deaf, but at our school we have a great CAPS program so I work with and interact with lots of hard of hearing and deaf people. Also through this internship I have interacted and worked with many wonderful people who have hearing loss. I have seen the struggles and also the successes they have gone through. As someone who does not have hearing loss I have seen somethings that might be normal for people who have hearing loss but might be abnormal for people who don’t. Like I have seen many people try to speak louder to deaf people even though they can’t hear. In school forgetting captions on a video. While these are small things I think it can make people feel out of place and unwanted. Also in my time here I have learned that only 2% of the population of people with hearing loss know ASL, so if you meet someone with a hearing aid you shouldn’t assume they know ASL. Everyone’s experience with hearing loss is different and there is always a large variety of stories from each person. Talking to people who are so different but also connected by this experience you can see how they relate to each other but also how their experiences differ by each generation and each person. I hope in the future people with disabilities will be less stigmatized and will be given the accommodations they need. I see this organization bringing change and helping people with hearing loss as one step toward that!
- Assumptions About Hearing Aids
Hello! My name is Alice and I am a rising senior who is interning with HLAA for the summer. I was assigned to make a blog post on this website to share my experience with hearing loss. As for some context, I was born with moderately severe conductive hearing loss as a result of not having ear canals. I wear a Bone Anchored Hearing Aid, or a BAHA, which is basically a quarter-sized device that rests on the side of my head, right behind my ear (see attached image). Because my hearing aid is not what people would typically think of as what a hearing aid is “supposed” to look like, I consistently get questions on what it is. The question I get the most is “what’s that?”, usually asked by young children, but I get lots of other questions too, including but not limited to: “what kind of headphone is that?”, “is that thing recording me?” or “are they using that to track your sleep or something?”. And it’s not just people with typical hearing asking these questions. A couple months ago, I was spending time with a preteen who also had hearing loss and she asked what my hearing aid was. When I told her it was my hearing aid, she responded “oh, I know what a hearing aid is but the ones I see never look like that.” That moment really stuck with me because it reminded me that hearing aids, like hearing loss itself, are wide in variety and often misunderstood. So, consider this post as a PSA. Hearing aids are not one size fits all. They come in many different shapes, sizes and colors, and are each specifically designed to help the person wearing them. Thanks for reading! And if you’ve ever wondered “what’s that?”, now you know ;-).
- Open Captioned Performances
Check out Local Movie and Live Theaters Near You!
An open-captioned performance is a theatrical or cinematic presentation where a text display of dialogue and sound effects is visible to the entire audience. Unlike closed captions, which require a separate device, open captions are displayed on a screen or monitor, making them accessible to everyone in the audience, regardless of their hearing ability.