Taylor Vogt’s world opened up when she was fitted with behind-the-ear hearing aids at age 3. “She kept making noise with her hands because she wanted to hear sounds she had never heard before,” says her mother, Tish Ciaccio, senior director of development for student affairs at RIT.
Tish and her husband, David Vogt, sought assistance from the Rochester Hearing and Speech Center, a United Way-funded agency in partnership with the Al Sigl Center. “We needed to learn how to deal with a child with a 30 percent hearing loss in both ears, and Taylor needed extra help with vocabulary, articulation and phonetics,” Tish says.
Now 21, Taylor is a senior at St. Lawrence University who is majoring in political science, plays Division III field hockey and plans a career in law.
“Her hearing loss has never gotten in the way of anything she wanted to do,” Tish believes. “We are forever grateful to RHSC because the agency kick-started her education and taught Taylor how to become a real advocate for herself.”
