Success story
Success story

Published: August 19, 2008

Jo Ann Bullard, 68, of Oklahoma City loves her job as a speech language pathologist. But without her hearing aids, she said she would not be able to work.

She began experiencing hearing trouble shortly after she graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1970. Then, it was tinnitus, or a ringing in her ears. About five years ago, what started out as a mere annoyance became dramatic as her hearing rapidly deteriorated.

About the same time, her husband died and her hearing troubles took a back seat to her painful loss. "After you have a loss like that, it takes a while to get your life in order,” she said.

When she finally realized that if she didn't do something about her hearing, she would lose the other thing she cared most about — her work — she decided to see Dr. Jace Wolfe, an Oklahoma City audiologist.

The day she got her Widex Inteo digital hearing aids, she began hearing things she never had heard before.

Bullard has always been a positive person and her hearing troubles never got her spirit down but she does wish that she had taken care of her hearing earlier.

"It has allowed me to remain in contact and communicate,” she said. "Communication is the basis for all life and once you lose that it really changes and impacts your whole life.”

Jace Wolfe is just one of many audiologists who work closely with speech-language pathologists, certified auditory-verbal therapists, physicians and educators in the Hearts for Hearing Foundation.

The foundation began providing clinical services in January 2007. The vision of the foundation is that all children and adults who are deaf or hearing impaired will have the opportunity to learn to listen and talk on par with their hearing peers.

To that end, the foundation provides hearing impaired children under 5 their first set of hearing aids and personal technology listening system free of charge. The foundation also provides the necessary therapy to ensure that children have the same opportunity for learning and growth as all other children have.

"It's a huge blow to a young family who has a baby with hearing loss. They're dealing with that information, and then they're also told that they need to have $6,000 to $10,000 to buy the technology that the child will need to be able to listen and to talk,” Wolfe said.

"Our foundation formed to provide that technology and the services that go along with that technology to every child with hearing loss in Oklahoma.”

To contact Hearts for Hearing Foundation, call 548-4300 or visit www.heartsforhearing.org.

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