About the Center

Hearing and Learning Center

The Hearing and Learning Center at the Ear Institute is a state-of-the-art facility that provides services for infants, children and adults who are affected by all degrees of hearing loss and auditory processing disorders. The Hearing and Learning Center brings together and unparalleled team of specialists from The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary and Beth Israel Medical Center, making it the largest such center in the tri-state region. Our staff has an unwavering commitment to excellence in clinical services, research and training.

Diagnostic Evaluation

The first step in the management of hearing loss is a complete diagnostic evaluation. The Center’s staff has experience and special expertise in evaluating hearing in neonates, infants and difficult to test children, including children with autism or developmental delay. Information obtained from the hearing evaluation assists in planning medical or surgical intervention, selecting appropriate technology (hearing aids and/or cochlear implants) and in making recommendations to improve functioning at school or work.

Hearing Aids and Assistive Devices

The Center evaluates and dispenses all types of hearing aids and assistive listening devices. All hearing aid styles are available, including analog, digital, and programmable. Also available are in-the-ear, in-the-canal, behind-the-ear, and body-worn devices. Hearing aids are available for special needs including bone conduction hearing aids and implantable hearing aids. Assistive devices improve communication in difficult-to-listen situations. Wireless FM systems improve listening for adults in work and social situations. Children hear much better with an FM system in a noisy classroom. Other assistive devices include telephone listening systems, group and individual listening systems, and alarm and alerting systems.

 Speech and Language Evaluation

A child’s academic progress is directly linked to his or her underlying language skills. Children with hearing loss or learning problems undergo a comprehensive speech-language evaluation, examining all aspects of the child’s ability to understand and to create verbal communication. Upon completion of the speech-language assessment, recommendations are made for therapies and educational approaches to address any specific difficulties.

Educational Consultation

Educational consultation is available to help families and schools develop the optimal learning environment for children with a hearing loss or auditory processing disorder. The educational consultant meets with parents to clarify available educational options and discuss city, state, and federal programs that might help support their children. The educators visit children in their school settings where they assess the auditory environment and school curricula. They help teachers to evaluate the functional statues of technology, such as hearing airs, cochlear implants and FM systems.

Social Work Liaison

The Hearing and Learning Center offers the services of social workers who specialize in helping children, adults and their families deal more successfully with the effects of hearing loss in social, family and employment situations.

Cochlear Implant Center

The Ear Institute’s medical experts helped pioneer the cochlear implant, a revolutionary auditory prosthesis that can be surgically implanted into the inner ear of children and adults who have a severe to profound hearing loss and who do no derive sufficient benefit from hearing aids. The Ear Institute performs over 100 cochlear implants each year, a very large volume for this type of highly specialized surgery, making it one of the leading medical facilities in the nation for cochlear implants. The majority of children and many adults who receive this life enhancing technology are able to learn to hear well enough to use hearing to understand speech and to talk on the telephone. Deaf infants and younger children usually hear well enough to learn spoken language and be successfully mainstreamed for school and play. The Ear Institute is distinguished from other hearing centers by its extensive Educator Liaison Program dedicated to assisting children with cochlear implants and/or hearing aids to succeed in mainstream schools. The program, which is now consolidated and expanded from both Beth Israel Medical Center and The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, serves more than 1,000 children a year.