In 1948, the Woman’s Club of Louisville and the Kiwanis Club of Louisville collaborated to sponsor the creation of the Louisville Deaf Oral School. The nonprofit school was the first of its kind in the state of Kentucky and aimed to serve children with hearing, speech, language and processing problems.
The Louisville Deaf Oral School was built on a small and humble foundation—in the beginning, three students gathering on Saturday mornings in the basement of the Woman’s Club of Louisville’s to learn from volunteer teachers.
Our founding teachers, Barbara Daugherty, Alice Clark and Ruth Browning, instructed their students with an auditory approach. By the close of the first school year at Louisville Deaf Oral School Foundation, enrollment had grown to 11 students. Today, we are proud to serve as a resource for more than 150 students each year.
In 2001, the Louisville Deaf Oral School officially expanded into a larger organization with an even greater scope and mission. In 2008, the name of the school was changed to Heuser Hearing Institute, which comprises several nonprofit branches of service including:
- Heuser Hearing & Language Academy
- Heuser Hearing Research Center
- Heuser Hearing Clinic
- Heuser Early Intervention Program
