Reporting by Steven Aquino
Led largely by the response to Apple’s Best Picture Oscar-winning film CODA, interest in the Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities has never been higher. Interest in taking sign language classes has skyrocketed since the film debuted, and there continues to be a newfound reverence for not only this segment of the disability community but of children of deaf adults as well. As a lifelong CODA, I personally can attest CODA is as much about Ruby Rossi constantly shifting between worlds—deaf and hearing—as it is whatever heartwarming-bordering-on-inspiration-porn cliches critics and fans have said about it. The familial dynamics depicted in the movie is what resonated with me, particularly since I could understand the dialogue between Ruby and her parents without relying on the subtitles. ASL is my first language and I speak it fluently.
Along those lines of amplifying hearing disabilities, Blake Cadwell’s Soundly, which launches today, hopes to transform the way people get treatment for hearing impairments. The startup pitches itself on its website as “[modernizing] access to hearing healthcare” by giving people access live chats with accredited audiologists, comparison shop for hearing aids, and find the best prices for them. As Soundly so succinctly puts it, they aspire to provide hearing healthcare “on your own terms.”
Cadwell’s connection to hearing health is a deep one. The 31-year-old rural Wisconsin native and Los Angeles resident became exposed to hearing health at....
Read the original article on Forbes here.
Comments