AG Bell Announces 2010 Recipient of the Volta Award

WASHINGTON, DC – February 4, 2010 – The Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing today named Ms. Joanna Nichols and the Children’s Hearing Foundation in Taiwan as the 2010 recipient of the prestigious Volta Award.

The Volta Award is given to individuals and/or organizations that have made a significant contribution to increasing public awareness of the challenges and potential of people with hearing loss. Ms. Joanna Nichols and Taiwan’s Children’s Hearing Foundation (CHF) are widely credited with revolutionizing deaf education in Taiwan by being the first organization to offer a listening and spoken language alternative to children with hearing loss in that country.

“This award recognizes Ms. Nichols for her life work and the Children’s Hearing Foundation for their role as an example of one of the most successful efforts to facilitate access to listening and spoken language for children who are deaf or hard of hearing through the application of listening and spoken language practice and the use of qualified professionals,” said AG Bell President John R. “Jay” Wyant. “Through her vision, and the continuing efforts of the Children’s Hearing Foundation, there is greater public awareness throughout Asia of the listening and spoken language option for children with hearing loss. In fact, many children who would have otherwise not have the opportunity are listening and talking today because of Ms. Nichols and the Children’s Hearing Foundation.”

Past recipients of the Volta Award include world-renowned audiologist Marion Downs of the Marion Downs Hearing Center; Hearing Loss Association of America’s Rocky Stone; the Oberkotter Foundation; Jim Garrity of the John Tracy Clinic; and Karl R. White, Ph.D., founder and director of the National Center for Hearing and Assessment Management at Utah State University; among others.

A California native, Nichols moved to Taiwan in 1977 and married Taiwanese native Mr. Kenny Cheng in 1983. The discovery that the younger of their two daughters, Alana, had a profound hearing loss led them on a journey in exploration of the myriad communication and language options available for children with hearing loss.

In 1993, they attended their first AG Bell event in Denver, Colo. Soon after, Alana received a cochlear implant and was raised using listening and spoken language. Nichols and Cheng founded CHF in 1996 with the mission of helping children with hearing loss learn listening and spoken language primarily through what was then called auditory-verbal practice, as well as to train therapists to make listening and spoken language possible throughout Taiwan. Since then, CHF has established teaching and research centers in Taipei, Kaohsiung, I Lan and Chung Yuan Christian University, respectively. CHF is the only organization worldwide that has applied auditory-verbal practice in Mandarin.

Ms. Nichols passed away in 2001.

The Volta Award will be presented at the Opening General Session of the AG Bell 2010 Biennial Convention on Friday, June 25 at the Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek in Orlando, Fla.

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