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CHF

How CHF started-
Alana Nichols is where the story of the Children’s Hearing Foundation began.

Her mother, Ms. Joanna Nichols, is an American who came to Taiwan in 1977 seeking a better environment to improve her Mandarin. She quickly achieved fluency in both Mandarin and Taiwanese and married Mr. Kenny Cheng in 1983. They had a prosperous business and happy family life until they found out Alana was profoundly deaf in both ears. Life threw a curveball to them, but they refused to be defeated.

Joanna and Kenny wished for Alana to be able to listen and speak and they were determined to make it happen. After enormous effort, Alana finally received a cochlear implant in Australia in one ear at the age of two-and-a-half. The cochlear implant sends electrical signals to the inner ear, thus enabling her to feel sensations with her left ear. Shortly after the surgery, she started her training in auditory-verbal therapy (AVT). Born in a bilingual family, English was chosen for Alana to learn. It was the language of her therapist and at the time was believed to increase proficiency when verbal therapy was focused on a single language

After discovering a solution that worked for her daughter, Joanna wanted to share the resources she had learned with other children with hearing loss and their families in Taiwan. Therefore, she and Kenny established the Children’s Hearing Foundation (CHF) to help children with hearing loss learn to listen and speak through AVT. Additionally, they created a program to make AVT available in Mandarin. Therapists are also trained in order to provide the service throughout Taiwan.

Now, there are 4 centers in Taiwan, more than 4,000 children and their families have received help. Joanna once said, “All children with hearing loss in Taiwan will be able to listen and speak.” Little did she know, the foundation she established would go beyond her goal. CHF is currently expanding its resources internationally, aiding children with hearing loss in Asia and Europe. Joanna and Kenny definitely turned the curveball that life threw them into a home run.