Hearing, Speech & Deaf Center (HSDC)

HSDC has been serving the Puget Sound area for over 80 years, and family and community have been fundamental parts of the agency since the very beginning. Originally a partnership between mothers of children with hearing loss and a social club for hard of hearing women, HSDC was incorporated in 1937 as the Seattle Chapter for the Hard of Hearing. In the 1950s, our name changed to the Seattle Hearing and Speech Center, which remained the only independent nonprofit west of the Mississippi for children and adults with communication challenges until the mid-1960s. Over the years, the HSDC began to incorporate more programs for the local Deaf community, who favored sign language over spoken language. During the 1960s and 70s, HSDC introduced what was, at the time, a controversial program that taught children with hearing loss American Sign Language (ASL). By the 1980s, the Deaf community had become such an essential part of the agencys programming that our name was changed to Hearing, ...