Helping Children Hear, Listen, Talk

A Colorado non-profit dedicated to helping families with children who are deaf or hard of hearing reach their best spoken language and mainstream outcome through Listening and Spoken Language Therapy.

Just Found Out Your Child Has Hearing Loss?

With the right support, your child can learn to listen and speak with confidence, joy, and possibility. Together, we make this journey possible, empowering, and full of hope.

The Listen Foundation is here to walk beside you from the very start. We offer clear guidance, steady support, and expert resources as you navigate your child’s hearing loss. You don’t have to do this alone! Our team is ready to help you:

Understand your child’s hearing options
Gain confidence in your next steps
Support your child in learning to listen and speak through Listening & Spoken Language (LSL)

Getting Started – Click the Parent Support Tab at the top of this page to see resources offered by Listen Foundation.

A Life of Independence

Listen Foundation provides for and assists children who are deaf and hard of hearing and their families, with access to a proven speech, language, and listening therapy method to help them achieve a life of independence.

This method is called Listening and Spoken Language Therapy, or LSL.

Thank you for providing the funding for speech therapy for kids like me. When I first started, people couldn’t understand me and it was very frustrating! Now I can talk very well. Thank you for helping me enjoy my life.

–Noah, 9 Year Old Listen Graduate

News and Stories

May is National Speech-Language-Hearing Month

A time to recognize the power of communication and the role it plays in a child’s life. This May, we’ll be sharing the story of a remarkable 12-year-old named Lily. Lily loves theater, skiing, reading, and spending time with friends. She’s bright, confident, and full of personality. But her journey hasn’t been without challenges. At just two years old, Lily was diagnosed with hearing loss. In an instant, her family was faced with uncertainty and big questions about her future. What happened next is what this month is all about.

With the right support, Lily didn’t just learn to hear sounds, she learned to communicate with confidence, build meaningful relationships, and fully participate in the world around her. In the coming weeks, we’ll share more of Lily’s story and how supporters like you make outcomes like hers possible.

Stay tuned!

A Colorado Gives Day Message from Todd Hallberg, Executive Director

Why I Believe in the Listen Foundation

I believe in the Listen Foundation because I have lived it.

When my wife and I first learned that our son was deaf, we did not know what to do. We didn’t know where to turn, what his future would look like, or what opportunities would be available to him. We were scared, overwhelmed, and searching for answers.

Then we met Nancy Schenck.

Nancy changed our lives. She helped us understand that with hard work, dedication, and the right support, our son could learn to listen and speak. She gave us something we desperately needed: hope.

Listen provided so much more than therapy. They helped us navigate all the things that come with raising a child who is deaf or hard of hearing. From understanding Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and navigating school systems to making decisions about technology and cochlear implants, Listen was there to guide us. Without Nancy and the Listen Foundation, our journey would have been much harder and far more frightening.

Click here to donate at Colorado Gives

Read Todd Hallberg’s Full Message

A New Era in Hearing Loss Treatment: Gene Therapy Update | Summer 2026

Andrea Warner-Czyz, Ph.D., CCC-A

You might have heard about gene therapy as a treatment option for children who are deaf or hard of hearing and wondered if your child might be a candidate. First, let’s review how the ear works and what can make it not work. Then, let’s cover how gene therapy works for a specific type of hearing loss. Finally, we will summarize what parents should know about gene therapy as a possible treatment for their child’s hearing loss.

In an ear with typical function, sound waves enter the outer ear and get turned into mechanical vibrations in the middle ear. The smallest bone in your body, the stapes, passes on information from the mechanical vibrations in the middle ear as it pushes into the snail-shaped cochlea of the inner ear. In the cochlea, fluid flows over the cochlear hair cells, which “bend” to create electrical signals that stimulate the spiral ganglion cells of the auditory, or hearing nerve. Many factors can affect how the auditory system functions and can result in hearing loss, but not all causes of hearing loss have the potential to be treated with gene therapy.

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Help Make a Difference!

Help us fulfill our mission of getting more Colorado children listening and talking. Your contribution is used primarily to fund Listening and Spoken Language Therapy from our amazing network of therapists, helping children desperatly in need across the state.