The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), a member of the

U.S. National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late 1 ...

, is mandated to conduct and support biomedical and behavioral research and research training in the normal and disordered processes of

hearing Hearing, or auditory perception, is the ability to perceive sounds In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psycholog ...

balance Balance or balancing may refer to: Common meanings * Balance (ability) in biomechanics * Balance (accounting) * Balance or weighing scale * Balance as in equality or equilibrium Arts and entertainment Film * ''Balance'' (1983 film), a Bulgaria ...

, smell,

taste The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste (flavor). Taste is the perception produced or stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor ...

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...

speech Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses Phonetics, phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if ...

, and

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

. The institute also conducts and supports research and research training related to disease prevention and health promotion; addresses special biomedical and behavioral problems associated with people who have communication impairments or disorders; and supports efforts to create devices which substitute for lost and impaired sensory and communication function. On September 3, 2019, Debara L. Tucci became NIDCD director. She is the first woman to be appointed to the role since the founding of the institution in 1988. Differing from some other institutes, in 1999 the NIDCD discontinued the Multi-Purpose Research and Training Center funding mechanism (large center grants) for the entire institute focusing instead on single-project research awards (R01's).

References

External links

NIDCD website

Deafness Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...

Deafness organizations Medical research institutes in the United States 1988 establishments in the United States {{US-gov-stub