Our Mission
Helping families ensure their children who are deaf or hard of hearing have opportunities to reach their full potential through listening and spoken language.
Our Vision for the Future
Early learning is critical to a child’s language development and lifetime success, and children who are deaf or hard of hearing will have the same opportunities as their hearing peers to capitalize on the critical early period for brain development.
Quality pediatric audiology and listening and spoken language intervention will be available and affordable for all families as close as possible to their baby’s birth or acquired hearing loss, and families will be empowered and equipped to effectively support their baby’s learning, language and literacy development.
Our Core Values
The Oberkotter Foundation is committed to:
- Integrating and coordinating all activities and investments in furtherance of our mission
- Maintaining absolute commitment to parent choice
- Employing and supporting Foundation staff members who are passionate, engaged, committed and knowledgeable and who strive for continuous improvement
- Striving to be collaborative, approachable, consistent and clear in all interactions with partners and grantees
- Disseminating information that is research and experience-based
Our Work
We focus on helping caring adults support infants and toddlers who are deaf or hard of hearing to have the same listening, spoken language and literacy opportunities as their hearing peers. We do so by supporting programs and projects that raise awareness of and increase access to education, resources, hearing technology and coordinated services. All of our activities and investments are coordinated to carry out our work effectively and efficiently.
Together with Hearing First and partner organizations in the field, we are currently focused on:
- Investing in coordinated pediatric audiology and LSL intervention for families of infants and toddlers with a focus on cost-effective delivery models;
- Supporting exploration and development of projects to reduce barriers for families in accessing critical audiological services (including early diagnosis, hearing technology and tele-audiology); and
- Cultivating and supporting research related to our work.
Oberkotter Foundation® 