Children’s Hearing & Speech Centre of BC (CHSC) established in 1963, is a family-focused clinical and educational centre that provides listening and spoken language therapy to children with hearing loss, giving them the skills and confidence they need to achieve their fullest potential!
In 1963, a group of parents, along with Hilda Gregory C.M., O.B.C, a gifted and dedicated educator of the deaf, founded the Vancouver Oral Centre for Deaf Children (VOC). Today known as the Children’s Hearing & Speech Centre of BC, we are the first and still the only listening and spoken language centre in all of Western Canada to offer listening and spoken language education. Listening and spoken language education is based on the assumption that children learn to speak because they hear.
In 1963, before sophisticated hearing technology was available, Hilda Gregory was one of a handful of deaf educators who believed that even children with profound hearing losses, wearing hearing aids, had enough residual hearing that they could learn to listen and talk.
The model of small classes and individual sessions that was the cornerstone of the children’s success at VOC is the one we still use today. We provide our children with the listening and spoken language skills, education and confidence to pursue their dreams to the highest level.
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The butterfly has been represented in the deaf and hard of hearing community largely in part because some species of butterflies are in fact deaf or don’t “hear” in the way we typically think of hearing. Butterflies are also symbolic of transformation. After all, they start out as caterpillars and then emerge a completely different species.
Children who attend Children's Hearing & Speech Centre of BC (CHSC) undergo a type of metamorphosis. They start their journey with limited or sometimes no access to the sounds in their environment and through advanced hearing technologies and the support of our incredible programs, these children can learn to listen and talk and participate fully in the hearing world!
The second defining characteristic of our logo is our spiral tail. This spiral represents the shape of the cochlea, an important structure in the inner ear that transmits sounds from the environment directly to the brain.
Hearing loss is complex. Some of our children have one or two cochlear implants, while others wear hearing aids, bone conducting hearing aids, or rely on amplification technologies in their environment. The devices act as gateways to sound, but they are only a tool. The butterfly magic happens through our immersive listening and spoken language programs that transforms a child from the non-hearing world to one full of spoken language, laughter, music, and hope!
