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November
 John Tracy Clinic was invited to attend and present at a conference in Spain November 16-17, 2007, in the capital of Madrid, coordinated and presented by parents and professionals associated with ANFAS, Association of Families and Friends of the Deaf (Asociacion de Familias y Amigos de los Sordos), an organization founded in 1998 by parents. Their primary objective is to give their children with hearing loss and their families a better quality of life with attention to early intervention strategies, to maximize use of listening devices and/or cochlear implants, provide speech and language services, as well as social and emotional support to the families, and support their deaf youth and young adults into the labor force.
Fernanda Hinojosa, who has been associated and worked in the Clinic’s Latin American programs in recent years, and was now residing in Madrid and worked in association with ANFAS, invited Mary Beth Goring, Director of Consultation Services, and Angie Stokes, Director of Education Services, both bilingual staff members, to present six lectures total dealing with family dynamics and the grieving process, self-regulation, behavior management, cognition, literacy, and receptive and expressive language development of children with hearing loss, emphasizing auditory input and spoken language skills. Although other guests were invited to present, JTC was given the bulk of presentation time over the course of the two-day conference.
Four of the twelve families that attended last summer’s Latin American Summer Program were families from Spain and several of them played an important role in coordinating efforts to bring this conference to fruition. Close to 300 parents, professionals, and Deaf adults attended the event. Ana Maeso, President, and Tomas Estevez, Vice President, founders of ANFAS, were inspired to begin this work because of their son, Miguel, who, despite a significant hearing loss, acquired excellent spoken language. Ana and Tomas lost their son to cancer two years ago. They have decided to continue their mission with ANFAS in providing education and support families with children who have a hearing loss. They say that parents in Spain must be heard and included in deciding educational programming and placement for their children. They play an integral part in the child’s life, have much to offer in way of collaborating with professionals, and have important challenges to overcome. Holding this conference was an important statement and step towards empowering parents….that’s why JTC was invited to share Mrs. Tracy’s message of “hope, guidance, and encouragement".
October
John Tracy Clinic Professional Studies Mentoring Program
Last October, John Tracy Clinic Professional Studies Program mentors Jill Muhs and Carol MacAllister presented a four-day in-service in Honolulu, Hawaii to create and train the Kapiolani Medical Center Auditory-Oral Team (KMCAOT). The development of this team started when Kapiolani Medical Center Rehabilitation Unit recognized that, with the increase in cochlear implantations in Hawaii and the drop in implantation age to twelve months, they needed to develop auditory skills in their patients. They also recognized the need for parents to understand and be partners in this development.
The in-service was designed in two parts: Foundation and Application. Along with class time and discussions, the John Tracy Clinic mentors were able to observe the professionals working with children and parents during in home and hospital sessions. The five member Kapiolani team will continue to be mentored by Jill and Carol through email assignments, phone calls and video. Clinic mentors will return in Spring to assess the team’s progress in helping families help their children develop spoken language through audition. The nine-month mentoring program will culminate next summer when the team leader and, hopefully, some of the families come to John Tracy Clinic to participate in one of our summer sessions.
September 27
Author Charms Staff
 Author Josh Swiller toured JTC and spent a working lunch with the staff, at which time he read excerpts from his newly released book The Unheard: a memoir of deafness and Africa. Josh, who was born deaf and now wears a cochlear implant, was not diagnosed until he was four years old. He writes, “It hadn’t yet occurred to me that the silence of things was an absence.” When asked what advice he might give to JTC parents from his own family, he said without hesitation, “My mother would never let me fall into self-pity or use deafness as an excuse for not doing something I wanted to do.”
The Unheard is the story of growing up deaf and of the two harrowing but life-changing years Josh served as the first-ever deaf Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia. His book has received glowing reviews in several national newspapers and magazines. Josh was also interviewed by Scott Simon on National Public Radio, who commented, “I think he may be the most interesting person we have every interviewed.”
Josh, who lives in New York, has been invited for a return visit to JTC in March 2008, schedules permitting.
September 24
JTC Families Attend "So The World May Hear"
 Today, over 150 children and their families, almost 40 percent of which were active and alumni families from John Tracy Clinic, attended “So The World May Hear,” a spectacular giveaway of hearing aids and hearing aid supplies from the Starkey Hearing Foundation. JTC contributed language interpretation, audiological assistance, counseling and other professional help throughout the all-day event, which took place at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills.
Included in the star-studded lineup were guest appearances by Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk), Nicolette Sheridan (Desperate Housewives), Eduardo Xol (Extreme Makeover Home Edition) and Former Miss America Heather Whitestone-McCallum (who took the JTC Correspondence Course in the mid-1970s). Along with free hearing aids, fittings, programming and consultation, each family received a complimentary lunch, educational literature, extra batteries and a toy.
The Starkey Hearing Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Starkey Laboratories, Inc., Eden Prairie, Minnesota, the world's leading manufacturer of custom hearing instruments. The next Starkey mission in the Los Angeles area will be on February 7, 2008, at the University of Southern California. Call Mary Ann Bell at (213) 748-5481 after the first of the year for more details.
Photo caption for news page:
Yanira Ruano (left front) talks to her daughter Brianna during her hearing aid appointment with Eduardo Xol (left back) and Bill Austin of the Starkey Foundation. JTC’s Luis Aguirre (center back) served as both audiological assistant and interpreter.
September 17
Author to Visit
We are pleased to be hosting Josh Swiller, author of the just released The Unheard, for a brown bag lunch in the courtyard (weather permitting; Antola back up) on Thursday September 27, 2007. Unheard is the story of growing up deaf and of the two challenging and sometimes scary years Josh served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia. His book has received glowing reviews in several national magazines as well as this excerpt in the New York Times Magazine:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/magazine/05lives-t.html?ex=1187409600&en=8820758ea03c7cdd&ei=5070
Josh did not receive services from John Tracy Clinic, but heard about our work from another author, Michael Chorost, who highly recommends the book. We will be taking Josh around on a tour of the Clinic starting at 11:30 a.m. I hope you have a chance to meet him then and that you will bring your lunch and sit with us, when he will read excerpts from his book and sign copies for those who wish to purchase one.
July 31
Japanese Tour Clinic
 A group of visitors from Japan's oral-deaf community toured John Tracy Clinic as part of a trip to the US arranged by Advanced Bionics. Said Kyoko Ishida, a clinical specialist who served as the group's guide and translator, "We wanted to learn about your sophisticated programs and systems which we don't yet have in Japan." Some members of the group will be writing reports about JTC for their local organizations' newsletters.
July 27
Baby Sound Check Topic of Grand Rounds
 A presentation on Baby Sound Check and early childhood hearing loss was given by JTC’s Director of Audiology, Christine Eubanks, Ph.D. and Dr. Parul Bhatia, M.D. at the Saban Research Institute as part of the weekly Grand Rounds for physicians and other medical personnel from Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. The presentation entitled, “Do You Hear What I Hear?: Early Identification of Hearing Loss in Children,” included an introduction to Baby Sound Check and its origin, training protocols and goals; the causes and risk factors for hearing loss and appropriate medical referrals; the benefits of early diagnosis and intervention, and an overview of current infant hearing screening technologies.
July 14
Alums Hold Scrapbooking Event
They cropped, they pasted, they laughed and shared memories, and they raised money for the children, too. Read More
June 30
Novel Features Early Clinic History
John Tracy Clinic and its Correspondence Course are important plot elements in a WWII novel released today by California writer, Suzanne Woods Fisher. Copper Star is a story about a member of the Nazi resistance who is smuggled out of Germany to live with a family in Arizona. A hero in the novel is a boy who is thought to be retarded but turns out to be deaf. Read more...
 Suzanne Woods Fisher is a magazine writer,
editor and novelist. She and her husband,
Steve, live in the San Francisco area and
have four children, two boys and two girls.
Copper Star (Paperback)
by Suzanne Woods Fisher
Publisher: Vintage Romance Publishing (June 30, 2007)
June 19
KTLA-TV Features JTC
The venerable Stan Chambers, award-winning journalist and a fixture on KTLA news for 60 years, taped his weekly community feature today at John Tracy Clinic. The final edited version will be broadcast at the 10:00 p.m. news hour on Channel 5, Saturday night, June 23.
 During the session, Mr. Chambers focused on early childhood screening and its importance in the acquisition of spoken language. To tell this story in 90 seconds, he took the staff’s suggestion to start with the results and work back to the screening. As such, he first shot a pudding-making lesson in teacher Bridgette Klaus’s older preschool classroom, where the children displayed their extraordinary abilities to listen to directions, talk and sing, despite their profound deafness.
 Next, Mr. Chambers, and his cameraman, Brian Choo, followed Christine Eubanks, Director of Audiology, into a testing room, where Christine administered Otoacoustic Emissions tests to four-month-old Alexandra Escalante of Los Angeles and six-month-old Jackson McQuay, here for the summer session with his family from Alberta, Canada. Both babies, who have older siblings with hearing loss, passed their screening, to the relief of their mothers, Mariana and Carla, respectively.
 Mr. Chambers also briefly interviewed Christine and President Barbara Hecht for background on the Clinic and parent-centered deaf education, and took with him historic footage of Mrs. Tracy talking about the need for early intervention, many years before it was acceptable practice.
MAY 26
Distance Education Students Graduate
 The Class of ‘07 is the first to complete the Clinic’s online Teacher Education Program in cooperation with the University of San Diego. The Master’s Degree graduates will enter a job market hungry for their skills. “We have never had a graduate not get hired immediately out of the program,” says Director of Teacher and Professional Education Mary McGinnis. They will not only be skilled in the Auditory-Oral method, but also experienced in working with parents who have babies and toddlers and any child with a cochlear implant.
May 11, 2007
BABY SOUND CHECK launched
Baby Sound Check, a new groundbreaking infant-toddler hearing screening program, was launched today in back-to-back events as part of Better Hearing and Speech Month.
In the morning, a demonstration screening and press announcement was held at the City of Commerce site of AltaMed Health Services Corporation, JTC’s initial partner in the development of the model program.
 The first baby tested in the groundbreaking program was six-week-old Nathan Adam Lorenzo, who passed the screening and will be screened again at six months of age. Thereafter, Nathan’s hearing health will be monitored annually as part of his periodic well-baby care.
Attending were reporters from the local press and trade publications as well as representatives of national and local health and educational organizations, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s office and John Tracy Clinic and AltaMed staffs. The itinerary featured background remarks by JTC President Barbara F. Hecht, Ph.D. and a discussion of the training protocols and technology by Program Director and JTC Audiologist Christine Eubanks, Ph.D. Dr. James Cruz of AltaMed, whose son Adam attended John Tracy Clinic, served as emcee.
 Robert Wagner, the well-known actor and John Tracy Clinic Board member, was the master of ceremonies for the Inaugural Luncheon afterwards. The luncheon was an occasion to thank Monica and Philip Rosenthal for their extraordinary gift to fund the program, which included upgrades to the hearing center at the Clinic, now named in their family’s honor.
The gathering was also a celebration of the results of the over year-long planning effort in collaboration with all the healthcare clinic partners, AltaMed Health Services, St. John’s Well Child and Family Center, South Central Family Health Center and Venice Family Clinic.
Karl White, Ph.D., Director of the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management, gave the keynote address.
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