A MOTHER’S VOW: A culture lover, Schacter felt her heart sink whenever daughter Arielle—diagnosed with hearing loss at 2 1/2—struggled to understand museum guides and actors onstage, even with hearing aids. “I thought,” she recalls, “things have to change—now.”
RELENTLESS: Researching online, she learned that cultural venues could provide better hearing access with relatively cheap technology—such as the induction loop, a coil placed around a room that wirelessly transmits amplified sound to a hearing aid. In 2002 the fast-talking ex-litigator teamed with three advocacy groups to launch the Hearing Access Program (www.agbell.org)—a crusade for 31 million hearing-impaired Americans. Schacter makes her case by phone or in person—buttonholing naysayers is a specialty. “Janice has had a remarkable impact,” says Terry Portis, executive director of the Hearing Loss Association of America….
Janice S. Lintz 