Ear Community

10/07/2026

On Tuesday, October 13, I’ll be joining the Federal Policy Panel at Children’s Hospital Colorado on the Anschutz Medical Campus, during the Colorado Rare Disease Fair.

My portion of the conversation will be addressing how insurance policies restrict access to hearing care, even though hearing device implant systems are medically necessary and essential for navigating everyday life for those who depend on them.

I'll be discussing the emotional roller coaster families go through when their child is denied coverage for a hearing device as well as how medical coding and labels can impact what’s covered and not covered, and how these distinctions can shape a patient’s journey.

While touching on Ally's Act, I'll share how this bill would address this issue for communities with rare types of hearing loss, while pointing out how existing reimbursement structures can miss rare patient considerations, such as children born without ears, and how current payer guidelines don't account for specific community needs with respect to hearing device systems.

📅 Tuesday, October 13
⏰ Federal Policy Panel: 2:10–2:40 p.m.
📍 Children’s Hospital Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus
13123 East 16th Avenue, Aurora, Colorado

The Colorado Rare Disease Fair will be taking place next week on Monday, October 12th and Tuesday, the 13th at Childrens Hospital Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, CO!

This event is FREE!
Come connect with providers, community members and industry stakeholders!

Register here:
https://rarediseasefair.org/

Thank you to Carolina Sommer for creating the opportunity for rare communities to have a platform in so many states that allows us to voice our concerns, share research and updates and to advocate for what is needed! ❤️

Thank you.
Melissa Tumblin
Founder - Executive Director
Ear Community

University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine
University of Colorado Boulder

10/05/2026

The season to help give back to nonprofits is approaching. What Maggie did is just one great way of how to help give back through an employer matching giving campaign.

Thank you so much to Margaret Lang for inviting Ear Community to present during ABBOTT's virtual town hall giving campaign today!

Maggie, thank you for thinking of our Ear Community when it comes to raising funds for our organization and bringing awareness to our rare cause! You are AMAZING and I am grateful for your help with helping get Ear Community in the spotlight today during the virtual giving campaign webinar! All of the nonprofits that presented are incredible with amazing causes! I am grateful to have had our community included today! Thank you so much for making this possible! Thank you to ABBOTT for helping give back to the community by matching employee donations and for helping support the good work that goes back into the community by nonprofit organizations!

Maggie's husband, Alex, is one of our amazing Ear Community Board members who was born with microtia and atresia! Helping give back to our organization matters to both of them! We are grateful that any employee contributions through ABBOTT will be matched by Abbott! Incredible! Alex and Maggie will also be our Ear Community picnic host family for our Minnesota picnic next summer that will be in collaboration with Minnesota Children's Hospital!

Thank you, Maggie and Alex, for your incredible support and love for what Ear Community does for the microtia and atresia community! ❤️ 👂
Pie Kieger Lang

09/29/2026

DEADLINE TO ORDER IS SEPTEMBER 30TH!

Microtia and Atresia Awareness Day is coming up on November 9th! 👂💙

This year, Ear Community reached out to Averie Warford (age 12), asking her to design our awareness day shirt for our community! ❤ Averie is incredibly talented and has been designing awareness day shirts for the past three years for our community since her brother, Gage (age 3), was born with microtia and aural atresia! This year, Averie has done it again with her "Pig-ture Perfect Just The Way You Are" design! She designed this beautiful shirt for our community and rare cause and she did an excellent job! 💙

Thank you to Alise and Joel Warford for raising such a beautiful daughter who is so loving, kind, creative and accepting! You are beautiful inside and out, Averie! ❤
$5 to $8 goes directly to the Ear Community Organization when ordering Averie's t-shirt, and our other Ear Community designs, through the above link for the Ear Community t-shirt store. Thank you to for being our official awareness t-shirt store for nearly a decade now!

Link to order:
https://stores.inksoft.com/earcommunity/shop/home

Thank you to everyone for supporting our cause for microtia and aural atresia and for embracing our awareness day on November 9th! The deadline to order is September 30th so shirts can be printed and shipped, arriving one week before November 9th. Thank you for everyone's support! Thank you Averie for your creativity and love for Gage and our community! ❤
Melissa w/ Ear Community

09/29/2026

Thank you to the American Cochlear Implant Alliance for advocating for such important legislation that is needed like IDEA, ALLY’s Act, EHDI, and the vital work of audiologists and SLPs during The The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Hill Day! Thank you so much for your advocacy, Monica Yavrom, DDS, MPH and Carrie Spangler, and for helping fight for what is needed for so many communities and the professionals and the services needed who serve our communities! ❤️🦻

A HUGE shout out to The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) for organizing ASHA Hill Day and for training for 159 ASHA advocates/members, representing 41 states, who participated in 170 meetings! Incredible work and advocacy! Thank you Jerry White and the ASHA Team!

Thank you for advocating for IDEA, ALLY’s Act, EHDI, and the vital work of audiologists and SLPs. Thank you for advocating for Ally's Act, H.R. 4606 and S. 3400 to pass!
Ear Community

09/29/2026

Honoring National Deaf Awareness Month!

Yesterday, Ally had her hearing test with her school audiologist, Dr. Jessica Peterson. We love Dr. Peterson! We also got to see Dr. Lauren Lewis, who has also been Ally's school audiologist since elementary school! It's always an important reminder to get your hearing checked every year! With September being National Deaf Awareness Month, we also proudly wore our Deaf Advocacy t-shirts that were made by Ally's school district, raising awareness and supporting our school Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program!

I would like to take a moment to say how incredibly grateful my family is for the D/HoH services our school district offers and how how grateful we are for every Teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, audiologist, ASL interpreter, case manager, itinerant teacher of the D/HoH and Para who has helped Ally thrive over the years in the school classroom! Our school district has an AMAZING Deaf and Hard of Hearing Department, among the best in the state of Colorado! Families with children who have hearing loss often move into our neighborhoods for their children to go to our school district. Since preschool, Ally has had the opportunity to have incredible D/HoH programs made available to her like signing Santa where the D/HoH department takes the kids on a field trip during the Christmas holiday to see the Santa who signs! When Ally was in elementary school, she enjoyed being a part of signing choir! Our school district (along with other schools from all over the state of CO) also hosts an annual D/HoH Track and Field Day, known as Dianne Goberis Track and Field Day. Dianne was a legend here in Colorado and she was Ally's preschool teacher. Dianne was a teacher to me as well! I learned SO MUCH from her regarding hearing loss and special needs and she just loved Ally! Our school district also has microphone systems in every classroom to help every child hear their best and offers ASL as an accredited foreign language in high school - Ally is in her 3rd hear of ASL. Ally has always had the best services in place too that help her when it comes to IEP services.

Maybe my family just got lucky. Maybe someone is looking out for us. What I do know is that my family has lived in our home for 23 years and at the time when we moved into our neighborhood, we had no idea that we would have a baby girl born with hearing loss who would benefit from such an incredible school district offering the best in D/HoH services.
Melissa and Ally
Ear Community

09/25/2026

In a recent study by MED-EL USA, the BONEBRIDGE bone conduction implant system is a safe and effective solution for individuals with rare genetic syndromes and craniofacial malformations, including those with aural atresia.

Cywka et al. evaluated the safety, effectiveness, and audiological outcomes of BONEBRIDGE BCI 602 in 10 patients (3 adults, 7 children), six to 45 years old, diagnosed with conductive or mixed hearing loss and one of the following conditions:

• Treacher Collins Syndrome (TCS)
• Goldenhar syndrome (GS)
• Klippel-Feil syndrome (KFS)
• CHARGE syndrome, and
• Mandibulofacial dysostosis (MFDM, guion-almeida type).

Audiological results, including hearing thresholds and speech recognition, were recorded pre-operatively, at device activation, and 3 to 6 months post-activation.

Results included:

• No major intraoperative complications
• Mean speech recognition scores increased from two percent pre-operatively to 86.25% during post-activation follow-up.
• In 8 out of 10 patients, the implant was positioned partially (4) or completely (4) in contact with the dura mater or sigmoid sinus.

Read more of this study published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42074864/

Thank you to MED-EL for being a proud Platinum Sponsor of our Ear Community Organization and for helping continue to advance hearing device technology for the children and adults in our microtia and atresia community!

Thank you!
Ear Community

09/23/2026

September 23rd, 2026 (Gothenburg, Sweden)
Today, Oticon Medical launched the SmartCharger for Ponto! This is the first rechargeable solution for percutaneous sound processors and marking a new step in convenience and portability for bone anchored hearing system users.

https://earcommunity.org/oticon-medical-launches-smartcharger-for-the-ponto-5-family/674568/

Thank you!
Ear Community

September 23, 2026 Gothenburg, Sweden Oticon Medical today announces the launch of SmartCharger for the Ponto 5 family, introducing its first rechargeable solution for percutaneous sound processors…

09/23/2026

Aw, I am truly touched and incredibly honored to be nominated and considered for the David Roche Award for Excellence in Advocacy by the Children's Craniofacial Association! ❤

When my daughter, Ally, was born 17 years ago with microtia and aural atresia of her right ear and slight craniofacial microsomia, we felt so lost and alone. Recognizing there was a need for other families like mine to have a safe place to go along with connection, inclusion, education and information on Ally's rare cause, I founded the Ear Community Organization. I didn't want anyone else to ever feel alone like my family did with microtia and atresia. Sixteen years later, Ear Community has provided a loving community for our children and adults and our families, along with research that is helping us find the answers we are looking for in regard to genetics, an awareness day for our community to embrace and Federal legislation to advocate for known as Ally's Act. It's so important to realize that when something is needed for a community that is okay to speak up and advocate in order to create change for the better! Otherwise, all of us will continue to struggle and do without when it doesn't have to be this way at all.

This award is named in honor of the esteemed David Roche, CM, for his lifelong dedication to opening minds, connecting hearts and for his advocacy in the cleft and craniofacial community. David's legacy of going above and beyond to advance the status of people with facial differences, promote acceptance and appreciation of appearance diversity, and challenge the stigma that surrounds physical differences, continues to live on through every incredible advocate in our community!

Thank you to the CCA for always being so supportive of the community we serve together and for helping advocate for to pass! Thank you for considering me for this meaningful award!
Melissa Tumblin
Ear Community Founder

09/22/2026

In honor of Deaf Awareness Month!

Here is a great reminder from Kimberly Clegg when it comes to hearing loss:

"Notice one thing all of these obstacles have in common?

They’re not because of deafness or hearing loss itself. They’re because of society’s expectations, assumptions and lack of access.

Different paths. Same potential. Same goal."
- Kimberly Clegg

📷 Kimberly Clegg
https://www.facebook.com/KimberlyASL

If you know someone with hearing loss, please give them a hug and know how much harder they are trying than you and me who have hearing with both ears. ❤️

Thank you!

09/22/2026

September is Deaf Awareness Month!

Our community includes individuals who are both Deaf & Hard of Hearing who can be born with hearing loss, lose their hearing along the way, or experience sudden hearing loss when you least expect it!

Most in our community wear bone conduction hearing device systems. Some wear cochlear implants and some wear traditional hearing aids.

No matter what type of hearing loss you have or end up with, always know that you are not alone! ❤️

Thank you!
Ear Community