Memphis Oral School for the Deaf

Memphis Oral School for the Deaf (MOSD) was founded in 1959 with the goal of Empowering Deaf Children to Listen, Learn, and Talk. MOSD serves children ages birth to five in our three unique programs - Sound Beginnings, Sound Transitions, and the MOSD Preschool. 

MOSD is the only program dedicated to early intervention services for infants with hearing loss (ages birth-2) through our Sound Beginnings program. Sound Beginnings is an early intervention, family training program where families of infants recently diagnosed with hearing loss receive personalized therapy and training each week. The goal of Sound Beginnings is for each parent to become the child’s first teacher and greatest advocate on their hearing loss journey. MOSD’s newest program, Sound Transitions, provides developmental therapy to children ages 1-3 twice weekly. This program reaches children with hearing loss who have additional developmental needs as well as children preparing to transition into the full-day preschool program by providing more specialized classroom instruction. The MOSD Preschool has a primary focus on developing listening and spoken language skills for children with hearing loss ages 2 - 5. Each student receives 6 hours of classroom instruction from a trained Teacher of the Deaf in a small classroom setting, 30 minutes of individual speech therapy, and 30 minutes of personalized aural habilitation (listening therapy) daily. The goal is for each child to be able to mainstream into their local kindergarten classrooms alongside their hearing peers by helping to close the language age gap caused by hearing loss.

It costs $50,000 to educate each child in the MOSD Preschool annually.